


things of intrinsic worth

by louly23



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (extremely brief and off-screen), (offscreen and not described in detail), (smoking weed and there are clear signs beforehand for those who wish to skip!), Angst, Aura Seeing, Character Death, Clairvoyance, Different time periods, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Flashbacks, Girl Direction, Girl One Direction, Mind Reading, Minor Violence, Past Lives, Pining, Suicide mentions, University AU, also if you think something needs to be tagged that i missed just let me know!!, cis!girl One Direction, minor recreational drug use, so this is my chance to rub my greedy one-direction-loving-dykey-lil hands all over it :'), sooooooooo i absolutely LOVED this travesty of a book when I was in seventh grade, time stamps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:14:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21571060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louly23/pseuds/louly23
Summary: Louis pauses, “I have lived the places I have lived, and done the things I have done for one reason, and one reason only.” Louis cups Harry’s face in her hands, and brings her close enough so that the only thing Harry can see are warm, bright blue eyes staring back into hers, “Because I love you with everything that I am, and will love you until the end of time.”...or the one where Louis and Harry are at the center of a fairytale and have been in love in every life, but this might be the first time that they get the happily-ever-after part.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	things of intrinsic worth

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in the recesses of my laptop for so long...I didn't think anyone would ever read it. Thank you to the people that read, kudos, and comment; you (yes, you) make the fight against my ADHD, four-year-long writer's block, and the never-ending struggle to find the right word to use worth it. 
> 
> Thanks for being here. Your hair looks nice today.
> 
> The title is from a [cowboy poem](http://www.cowboypoetry.com/mcrae.htm) I read my sophomore year of college. I wish I could ask myself why I chose it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PART TWO: COMING SOON.
> 
> :)

Louis Tomlinson has loved Harry in every single one of her lives.

She’s been cursed, stuck in the same spirit cycle for longer than she can remember, haunted by the fact that her soulmate is forced to forget her over and over while Louis just keeps going. Just keeps living.

Because she’s just casually immortal.

She’s not a vampire (gross), a witch (seriously?), or some kind of zombie (really? that’s hurtful). She’s just an immortal. Seven hundred or so years ago when Louis was a peasant in a village that she has long forgotten the name of, she knew a boy named Damen Auguste who claimed to brew the secret to immortality. Louis had drank it, a young 20 year old fool, and that was it. Time had stopped for her, forever. She shared her elixir only with Zayn, a chambermaid in the castle not too far from her village that Louis considered a sister. Zayn and Louis enjoyed two decades of lavish living after that, (being friends with Damen and his partner Drina had its perks) but then she had laid eyes on a brown-haired, green-eyed angel with the most vibrant gold and lavender aura that Louis had ever seen. She fell madly in love with her and never looked back.

Louis befriended the girl, whose name she learned was Harry, and slowly but surely, Harry had fallen just as hopelessly in love with Louis. The two had four perfect years together, sneaking around the castle behind Harry’s husband’s back, kissing in the dungeons and making love in the stables. Louis was just about to offer Harry the elixir, wanting to share immortality with the person she loved most, when somehow, Harry’s husband discovered she was unfaithful. She was tried as an adulterer and hanged the next morning.

Empty and hopeless, Louis had thrown herself back into the balls, parties, and drinking; spending too much money and not thinking about it and never sitting still, because Louis knew that if she froze for more than a second, she would turn to stone and crumble away. She and Zayn danced their way through decades, numb, until one day Louis was visiting a friend in French court, and she caught sight of a brown-haired, green-eyed beauty with a gold and lavender aura, begging at the side of the road.

The cycle never changes; Louis finds Harry, tells Harry the truth, Harry remembers all their shared lives, and then Louis gets her for a time, sometimes it’s longer and sometimes it’s shorter, but then she dies. Every time. And Louis is left to wander the earth lonely and empty until Harry comes back, in a different place, with a different voice, but the same beautiful face, and the same aura that compliments Louis’ own.

That’s another thing about Louis, she’s clairvoyant.

Not in the whole ‘reading palms and telling the future’ sense, (although she did spend a chunk of the early 1900’s living in a spiritual community), more in the sense that she can manifest whatever she likes, occasionally read thoughts, know all the answers on every test, and see a person’s essence, A.K.A. an aura. She’s been studying them for years, travelling all over the world and never finding two exactly alike.

So after Louis waves goodbye to one of her lab partners as she steps out of the Biology building and into the sun, she can’t help the way her heart stops when she sees a flash of gold out of the corner of her eye. _She’s here._

The first glance is always the hardest. That first sight of her stunning gold and lavender aura that cloaks like a halo around her pale, effervescent face, the swish of her sweet little hips, the beautiful emerald eyes that Louis has seen so many times in so many places that have never known her face. Louis scrapes her long fringe out of her eyes and pulls it over to one side, covertly searching for those mile-long legs.

It takes a minute, but then her eyes find her.

Across the street walking on the sidewalk towards the student union, Harry is flanked on either side by two other girls, the right sporting a strong turquoise-orange bloom around her chest and the left crowned by a wavering green and yellow burst, as her girl throws her head back and lets out a funny yell. Louis can’t help the small, helpless smile that rises on her cheeks, _God_ but does the 21st century look good on her girl.

She’s wearing her hair up; the bun on the top of her head is a beautiful mess of chocolate curls that are slowly starting to untwist from the elastic she probably tucked them in that morning. She has on tan gladiator sandals and a breezy cerulean and white maxi dress that accentuates her slip of a waist, her delicate shoulders, and her elegantly long legs.

Louis takes a deep breath and forces herself to turn her head away, fighting the urge to reach under her shirt and clutch at her necklace, tucked safely under her layers of clothing. She knew this would happen. She _knew_. The first time in a couple hundred lifetimes that she tries to hide from fate, and of course they curse her. Of course they force them together. She sighs and jogs up the sidewalk to cross the street farther ahead from where Harry is walking. Louis prepared for this; she’s not going to give up on the first day.

She crosses the street, waving a thank you to the car that stops for her, and walks uphill to her dorm, pulling her earbuds out of her jacket pocket and shoving them in even though they aren’t connected to anything. It’s a trick she learned from Zayn for when she doesn’t feel like interacting with anyone. _Damn, but kids are rude these days._

++++++

Harry was having a good day.

She had _aced_ her Psych exam and gotten a good mark on the essay she had turned in the night before. She, Liam, and Niall had gotten out of class early and were planning on ordering Chinese and binge-watching a new show on Netflix; a _very_ good day.

She’s walking up the sidewalk away from the life-science building with her two friends, trying to avert her eyes from the pulsating auras all out in front of her; the colors can start to hurt her eyes after a while. Niall’s enthusiastic tone can be heard even if Harry isn’t listening to the joke she’s telling Liam, and between one heartbeat and the next, Harry feels a pull in her gut stronger than any feeling she’s ever had.

 _Look up,_ it screams, _look up._

So she does, and the world changes.

There is a girl, on the short side, wearing all black with the softest-looking caramel-brown hair walking as fast as she can up the street. Harry’s neck prickles, because the girl is familiar, even from the back, but also because of the most unusual thing Harry has seen since her mother died.

The girl has no aura.

++++++

Louis’ about to cross another walkway to the quad her dorm rests on when she hears quickened steps behind her, and then, a breathless but beautiful voice that Louis has heard so many times calls after her, “Hey! Hey wait!”

Louis inhales sharply and forces herself to keep her pace steady. _You can’t hear her. You can’t hear her. Keep going. Don’t panic. Keep walking._ She walks past the parking lot and is barely five feet away from her building’s front door when she feels a hand snatch her elbow, sending a shock of familiarity and warmth and _home_ down her spine faster than a lightning strike. The hand on her arm jerks her back and Louis schools her expression into something confused and a little annoyed as she turns herself around to look the love of her lives in the face for the first time in almost twenty years.

Her Harry looks as beautiful as she did the last time she saw her, rose-colored lips parted in the middle of her heart-shaped face and her doe-like eyes wide beneath her slight, dirty-blonde eyebrows. Louis pulls her arm back to separate those long, graceful fingers from where they’re practically burning a hole through her leather jacket. Louis pulls an earbud out and raises an eyebrow, “Can I help you?”

Her girl blushes, hard, fishmouthing as she stares at Louis and blinking rapidly like she thinks Louis will disappear any second. “I—um. Hi! I’m, um, Harry? Harry Styles? I, ugh—do I? Know you?” her tongue darts out to wet her lips as she tries to collect her thoughts, “Did we have a class together? Or something? Because I saw you—I saw you, um, walking—and I could _swear_ —”

_I love you. I’ve loved you my whole life. I’m so sorry._

Louis scoffs, scrunching her nose up in a sneer she knows looks mean, “Not to my knowledge, no. Why would you think we know each other, Harry?” she looks up and down Harry’s body in a way she hopes looks derisive, but inside she’s holding back from biting her lip, _God Damn, look at you_ , “We look like we run in the same circles?”

Harry’s eyebrows furrow as she takes in Louis’ classic black-on-black-on-black ensemble, complete with the stud through her eyebrow and hoop through her nose, tattoos peaking beyond her collar, and DM’s laced loosely on her feet. Harry’s eyes focus on the ground, an embarrassed blush coming in harder as she takes a step back, “I’m, I’m sorry I just thought—”

The two girls Harry was walking with run up the sidewalk a second later, both of them looking confused as they spot Harry and Louis and jog over. Louis takes a step back, pulling her cigs and lighter out of her pocket, packing the top with her open palm. She pulls one out, pops it in her mouth, and lights it, taking a drag and letting the smoke curl out of her nose, trying to keep her hands from shaking. “Whatever, Harry,” her voice acidic as she turns away, “Just try not to _assault_ any more strangers for no reason in the future.”

She stalks away, pulling out her school ID and but not yet pressing it to the scan on her building’s door. Behind her she hears Harry’s friends asking her what happened, why she sprinted away. “I—” Harry takes a deep breath, “Nothing.” Louis shuts her eyes hard, holding back tears, “Nothing happened, I don’t—I don’t know why I did that.” Harry laughs, trying to lighten the mood, “You know me, scatterbrained as ever.”

Louis presses her ID to the scanner, waiting for the _beeeeep—click!_ that signals the door unlocking. She pulls in another drag, tears beginning to fall down her cheeks as she blows out her next puff of smoke. She sprints up the stairs, cig still in her mouth as she hastily wipes away tears, until finally she reaches the third floor. She walks down the hallway as calmly as she can, shakily taking another drag as she sniffles, tears dripping down her face. She reaches her room and jerkily sticks the key in the lock, wiping her face on her sleeve.

The door swings open and she slams it behind her, leaning against it as she tries to take a drag but instead coughs on the sob that breaks out of her throat. Louis chokes, pounding her chest and putting out the wasted cig in the ashtray next to their door. She looks up to see Zayn sitting at her desk across the room, her deep brown eyes soft and sad.

“Oh _Lou_ ,” she says as she stands and crosses the room, folding Louis into her slender brown arms. Louis tucks her face into Zayn’s neck and starts to really cry, her breath hitching as her shoulders shake and her hands grip the back of Zayn’s shirt like a vice.

Zayn doesn’t say a word, just holds her close and sways a little, humming a familiar tune until Louis calms, her breath coming easier and her tears slowing. Zayn leans back, brushing tears from Louis’ cheeks, her face sympathetic as Louis takes another shuddering breath. Louis walks past Zayn, tossing her backpack on her bed, unlacing and toeing off her shoes, and unzipping her jacket to toss on the back of her desk chair.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” Louis purses her lips and rubs the back of her head, nodding. Zayn makes a concerned noise, but Louis puts up a hand before she can say anything more. Louis pulls out another cigarette and lights it, leaning over to blow the smoke out the window.

“I just—”

“Don’t, Zayn. Just don’t.”

“She deserves a choice too, Lou. I just think you’re being dismiss—”

“Doooon’t,” Louis sing-songs.

“But if you would just exp—”

“ _Don’t_.”

Zayn huffs, “Fine. _Fine_.” the dark-haired girl walks over to her bed and pulls herself onto it, grabbing her sketchpad, leaning against the wall, and shading whatever she’s working on, “You wanna be a fuckin’ self-sacrificing, sel _fish_ , trivializing, _twat_ , then that’s fine. Do whatever, Lou. Several hundred years old and you’re still haven’t _learned_.” She shakes her head, “Fate always gets what they’re after, Lou. You know that by now.”

Louis lets out a grunt as she takes another drag. On the exhale she yanks open the fridge, pulling out a bottle of elixir and chugging half of it in one go. Louis turns back to Zayn, taking a drag and puffing, “You didn’t see her. She was _happy_ , Z. She deserves that. To be happy.” She shuts her eyes and pinches her nose between her thumb and first finger; crying always gives her a headache. Zayn snorts, “And since when is it for you to decide what ‘happy’ means for Harry? She’d kick your ass if—”

“Yeah,” Louis cuts in, “ _If_.” She takes another pull, holding it for a second before she breathes it out the window. “But she doesn’t. And she won’t.” she snubs out the cig on the windowsill and flicks the butt out the window, “Not unless I tell her.” she looks up at Zayn, whose eyes are filled to the brim with pity, “And I’m not going to. I’m not going to tell her, have her, _hold_ her again,” her voice breaks, “only so I can lose her.”

Louis wipes her eyes and pulls herself into bed. “I’m tired, Z. I’m just,” she sighs, “I’m tired.” Before Zayn can say anything else Louis rolls over, reaching her hands under her shirt to clutch her locket as she shuts her eyes and tries not to cry.

++++++

Harry waves to Liam and Niall as she turns to walk up the steps to the entryway of her dorm. Even from almost 20 feet away and out of the corner of her eye she can see both of their auras clear as day; Niall’s greeny-yellow and halo-ing out around her head while Liam’s is more focused around her hands and the center of her chest, endlessly shifting from orange to light blue.

She swipes her school ID at the door and walks in, climbing the stairs two at a time and waving at her favorite security guard as she does. She reaches hers and Liam’s room in no time, unlocking the door and stepping inside the warmly-lit room and tossing her bag on the floor. The door swings shut behind her as she un-zips her sandals and steps out of them, kicking them away from her. Harry fishes her phone out of her discarded backpack’s pocket and plops down onto her bed, flipping through recent tweets as her mind pretends to ignore what just happened.

 _But how could I have gotten it so wrong?_ She thought, _I absolutely know that girl! Her face was so, so…_

Harry locked her phone, tossing onto her pillow and rolling over onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

The girl was, _beautiful_ , was the thing.

Furiously blue eyes, the color of angry oceans with gray clouds, tan skin that looked soft as _hell_ and probably is even colored all over…a sweet smelling perfume that seemed more delicate than what most people wear nowadays, cheekbones that cut harder than glass with that scowl…that scowl on the girl’s angelic face that Harry had no trouble focusing on because of that moment, that small singular moment when their skin touched, even so gently,

There was nothing.

No feelings, no thoughts, no pain, no aura, nothing. The first perfect, blissful silence that Harry has felt in almost three years.

Harry shudders and closes her eyes, trying to think of all the people she has seen, all of the spirits she has felt, and realizing that she never has seen an aura-less person. Never touched someone who didn’t give off any emotions or feelings. The mystery girl is a first in the short time Harry’s life has been anything but ordinary.

She shudders again and closes her eyes, trying to remember exactly what the girl smelled like, as she falls asleep.

++++++

Louis is eating a cheeseburger the second time she sees her.

She hasn’t had a burger in a few months, and she woke up this morning with a craving for some real food, so she skipped her elixir and opted for the cheese-and-ketchup-covered mess she’s currently trying to fit inside her smaller-than-average mouth while she looks over the notes for her next exam. She likes the food at this university; it’s better than the last three colleges they’ve attended in the past couple decades.

Harry walks into the café, alone this time, with a big iced coffee and a bag of school work. She plops down at a booth a few away from Louis’ own and pulls out her computer and a textbook, flipping through the pages until she reaches the one she wants and powers up her computer, sipping her drink and tapping her fingers impatiently on the keyboard. Today she’s wearing spotted leggings and a cropped sweater that shows a strip of her belly, and _hell-o, doll_ , definitely no bra. Louis bites on a smirk as she turns back to her notes, _my sweet lil’ hippie._

Louis goes back to her burger and her ADT notes; re-highlighting the information from the last time she took the class (it was four or five years ago, she’s not really sure). She whistles softly under her breath as she reads and highlights, totally zoning out until she’s finished eating and crumpling up the mess, standing and packing up her stuff, and tossing it in the trash only to walk straight into something solid, warm, and _shit_.

“Oops!” Harry squeaks when her phone and keys hit the ground with a clatter, along with Louis’ book and pencil case. _Sigh_. Louis bends and starts to gather her stuff without looking at Harry, who starts to lean down as soon as Louis is finished, causing Louis’ head to run smack into Harry’s nose, which _of fucking course_ starts gushing blood. Louis stands up just in time to catch Harry from falling on her ass, and pulls her up so she’s standing. Without hesitation, Louis cups a hand under Harry’s nose and steers her over to a table with condiments and napkins.

She grabs a handful with the hand not under Harry’s nose, carefully presses them to where she’s bleeding, and pulls up Harry’s hand to hold them there, pressing her ADT notebook into her other hand. She then wipes off her own hand his best she can, and walks over to snatch the stuff Harry dropped, flipping off a group of assholes who are laughing at Harry. “Oh go get fucked,” she shouts in their direction, “Don’t you have classes you should be failing? Significant others and parents you should be disappointing?” The boys glare at her, but go back to their books.

Louis walks back over to Harry, whose nose has stopped bleeding, and has an embarrassed, kicked-puppy look on her face. Louis hands her the phone and keys, and Harry takes them, blushing. “I’m sss-so sorry, I sss-hould have been looking—I just,” Louis holds up her hands, “No harm, no foul, babes. Your beak doin’ ok?” she asks, tapping a finger to her own nose. Harry honks out a laugh, almost involuntarily, “Yeah, the bill is fine, she’s been hit by worse.” She tries to copy Louis by tapping her nose too, but flinches, “Ouch. You’ve got a hard head.” Louis’ eyebrows crunch together in sympathy, “Yeah, that’s what Mama always said.” She puts her clean hand on Harry’s elbow, “How’s about we go clean up,” she nods in the direction of the bathroom a few feet away. Harry nods, a small smile on her face.

They get in there and Louis washes her hands twice, pulling up the sleeves of her dark gray sweater, and dries them while Harry gently dabs at the congealing blood underneath her nose. Louis takes a deep breath and is about to leave the bathroom when she feels that hand on her elbow.

“Hey, thanks, for the first aid and defending my honor and everything.” She smiles, that apple-cheeked, full-blown, stunner-smile that has broken Louis’ heart more time than she can count, “And I, ugh,” those pretty emerald eyes drop to the ground, “I’m also really sorry for the other day. I shouldn’t have startled you.” Louis’ returns a smile that’s small and regretful, “I told you, its fine. And it’s my pleasure. But we should try and avoid _literally_ running into each other in the future. Sound good, sweetheart?” she raises an eyebrow and leaves the bathroom without waiting for her to answer. She gets all the way back into her dorm, in her bed, half-naked and smoking a cigarette before she realizes Harry still has her notes.

_Fuck._

++++++

Harry, Niall, and Liam lean over the notebook with suspicious eyes, no one daring to open it. Harry leans away first, watching the other two.

“You’re sure this is her notebook? No-aura girl?” Liam asks carefully, like she’s trying to get information from a small child. Niall nods, “Oh yeah it’s Louis’. I can feel her energy on it. She’s got a good vibe, kind of odd, but still nice.” Niall points at the corner of the notebook, where LWT is carved in in pen, “Plus her initials are on it.”

Harry gives her a disapproving look, “Niall. You can’t read auras. Stop pretending you can read auras.”

Niall pouts, “I didn’t _say_ aura did I? I said _vibe_. Anyone can read vibes.” Then she grins, “So what’s the plan now that you’ve stolen her notebook, you gonna give it back?”

“I didn’t steal it!” Harry says indignantly, snatching the notebook from Liam’s hands and pressing it against her chest. “She gave it to me to hold and forgot to take it back, and she always _sprints_ in the opposite direction when I see her, so I haven’t been able to return it.” she sniffs, “I’ve had it about a week, I might as well look through it and see when I can give it to her.”

Liam shakes her head and walks back across the room to her own bed where her physics homework awaits, but Niall plops down on the bed next to Harry with a gasp, “You’ve had it a _week_ and you haven’t gone through it yet? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Harry shrinks back uncomfortably from the question, when Liam cuts in without looking up from her textbook, “Maybe she was trying to be a _moral_ human being; we violate people’s privacy enough just by existing, going through the personal property of a stranger for fun is next level.”

Niall flips Liam off without even looking at her and turns back to Harry, “You _have_ to look through it! How else are you going to be able to give it back?”

Harry sighs, and looks at the plain, black, spiral-bound offender in her arms and looks back up at Niall, “Okay. But only for her schedule.”

Across the room Liam shakes her head, and Niall wiggles her hips in a little victory dance.

++++++

“Annnnnnnd _one_ , two, three. _One,_ two, three. Push _off_ ladies and gentlemen I want strong legs and buttocks. Use the floor to your advantage or you will regret it when we’re doing this choreography on stage in three months!”

Louis lands her jeté battu lightly and chassés into the corner to stand next to Perrie, who finished the combination a moment before Louis had. Perrie relaxes out of position, her lithe torso slouching slightly forward to whisper into Louis’ ear, “What does she mean ‘we’? That old cunt hasn’t danced a step since she realized her cloven hooves wouldn’t fit into pointe shoes.” Louis snorts, covering it up by tucking a lock of loose of hair behind her ear when she sees Madame Grove’s eyes narrow in hers and Perrie’s direction.

Perrie Edwards is new to the dance program, a transfer that skipped her last year of college to come up the uni and has yet to make any friends, save Louis. The girl is sweet and funny and an excellent dancer, perfectly able to keep up with Louis in choreography, but also fuck around when their teachers aren’t paying attention. Louis likes Perrie, and has to make more of a concerted effort to hang out with her outside of class, because honestly, when they aren’t in the studio Louis never sees her; not on campus or at any of the local shops where she runs into classmates all the time.

Louis straightens her shoulders and waits until Madame looks away, talking out of the side of her mouth in a snotty, posh accent like their teacher, “You’ve been very naughty, Ms. Edwards. Bend over the barre so I can teach you a lesson.” Perrie coughs, loudly, and Madame’s head immediately whips to their direction. “Ladies. Eyes to the front, and mouths _closed_.”

“Yes, Madame. Sorry, Madame.” They both parrot obediently before resuming their proper position.

Later, after class is over, Louis is untying her point shoes and massaging the balls of her feet, wincing slightly. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her bandages, rolling back her tights and wrapping up the two broken blisters on the sides of her feet with gauze before shoving them into her ratty, old converse. She the pulls out the locket from the zippered pocket on the side, kissing it softly before dropping the chain over her head and tucking it under her hoodie. “Hey, Lou, wanna grab some dinner? Caf is open late tonight.” Louis looks up to meet Perrie’s eye as she shoves her folded up pointe shoes in her bag and yanks on a sweatshirt. She offers Louis a hand up and she takes it, shouldering her bag and thanking Perrie. “Can’t.” Louis says, “I promised Z, my roommate, I would sit for a portrait tonight.”

The blonde’s eyes seem to narrow for a second, but then she smiles so brightly Louis assumes it was a trick of the light. “Oh! Okay babe. Walk with me?” Louis grins and takes her arm. “It would be my pleasure, love.”

++++++

_March 10, 1430_

_Harry is in an entirely unfamiliar room._

_The ceilings are vaulted exquisitely and every wall is perfectly-stacked, rough-hewn stone, there is an enormous fire roaring in the fireplace, there are rich rugs on the floor, and curtains in every window and around the bed in which she lays. To the corner there are an incredible, dark-wooded wardrobe and dresser and a gigantic door to match both. The room is spacious and beautifully decorated, and despite the fact that Harry has never seen it before, she feels completely at home._

_The bed she’s laying on is enormous, one of the largest beds she has ever seen, and she is swathed in several thick, warm quilts, and rough-hewn, scratchy sheets that somehow still feel comfortable and after moment’s realization, she notices that she’s wearing no clothes._

_And despite all these strange revelations, instead of being alarmed, she finds herself excited, and a little nervous, and feels an overwhelming urge to look at the window farthest from her bed. The moon breaks through the curtains flapping quietly in the breeze, and Harry pulls the blankets closer around her naked shoulders, practically trembling with gooseflesh. She normally would have told a servant to close the window, she thinks, but tonight the window needs to be open. She doesn’t know why, but she knows that it must remain open._

_Not a moment later she sees why, a small, delicate hand on the brick sill, straining to pull the cloaked figure attached to it over the edge of the window and into Harry’s bedchamber. Harry feels her heart begin to race, but she doesn’t scream, or try to run from the stranger pulling themselves inside her home, instead she stands, wraps a robe around herself and begins to slowly walk over to the window, where the figure has gotten inside and standing up, slightly panting and batting off dirt from their cloak. Harry steps seem to be in slow motion as she approaches the stranger, and just when she reaches the hooded figure they raise their head and unhook their cloak, letting it fall to the floor._

_Louis looks up from the floor as she wipes the dirt off her face, wearing a floor-length skirt, billowy blouse, and corset; all the same color as her eyes. The older girl brushes a piece of her long, pin-straight hair that has fallen out of the bun at the nape of her neck behind her ear, and smiles the brightest smile Harry has ever seen on her face. She steps up close to Harry and wraps her arms around her, pulling their faces close enough to kiss, their mouths less than a breath’s length away. “Good Evening, fair goddess, is there perhaps room in your bed for a weary traveler?”_

Harry wakes up with a start, her phone going mental with the three alarms set on it next to her. Liam is already up, dressed, and showered and walks over to Harry’s bed with a mug of coffee, ruffling Harry’s hair as she hands it to her. “Good Morning, curls. About time, I thought those stupid things would never shut up,” she gestures to the phone as she walks back over to her bed to sort out her backpack. Harry sits up in bed, clutching the cup of coffee Liam gave her and tries to regain control of her breathing.

 _What the hell was that?_ She thinks to herself as she tries to calmly sip from her warm mug. Her heart is still racing as she looks down at herself to see that she’s wearing the nightshirt she put on last night, and glances around to see that hers and Liam’s dorm is still the exact same as it was yesterday. All the time Harry has been silently panicking Liam has obviously been talking to her because she suddenly hears, “Haz? You alright, love?”

She looks up and over at Liam’s concerned face, and forces herself to smile. “Yeah I’m fine.”

Liam purses her lips and exhales out her nose, looking very serious as she does so, “Are you sure? You looked really freaked for a second there.”

“It was nothing,” Harry says, waving her unconcernedly as she sips more of the coffee, “Just a dream.”

++++++

Louis sees Harry on campus practically _every fucking day_ after the head-to-nose situation, but luckily she had mastered the art of being entirely _un_ -subtle.

Harry waves from across the quad, Louis pulls out her phone and acts like she didn’t see. Harry calls her name from across the café, Louis turns and walks either in the opposite direction or out of the building completely. She makes sure in every conceivable way that Harry knows Louis is avoiding her, and being as rude as she possibly can be about said avoidance.

She knows she’s hurting Harry’s feelings, knows how sensitive Harry is, and it’s absolutely _killing_ her, but she promised herself that she wouldn’t get too close. Wouldn’t hurt Harry again. She already broke the first promise, but the second one she’s keeping…she’s owed Harry that for the last 1,000 years.

So, of course, the one time Louis isn’t paying attention, and is actually zoned out on her phone, (the internet is amazing, and Louis still partly swears that it’s magic), _of fucking course_ , Harry corners her on a bench in front of the rec center.

“You take Advanced Dance Theory?”

Louis looks up from her phone to see Harry, hair long and loose, wearing a short, pretty pink dress and black patterned tights; clutching Louis’ notebook in her pale, slender fingers. Louis tilts her sunglasses down her nose a little, and holds her hand out for the notebook. Harry hands it over and Louis flips through it, shutting it when she’s satisfied it’s all there. _Thank you, babydoll,_ is what she wants to say, just like she did when they were in high school in the 60’s and she used to tuck her notes into Harry’s satchel so that Harry would have to give them back later. _Remember when we used to neck under the bleachers to Pink Floyd? Remember when you used to wear your bra to school then take it off in the bathroom to stuff it in your satchel so your Mama wouldn’t know what a lil’ hippie you were? Remember when you always introduced yourself as Heart instead of Harry because you wanted everyone to think your Mama and Daddy were just as hippie as you? Remember when I started calling you **my** **heart** when we made love and you stopped telling other people to call you that because you wanted to save it just for me? _

Louis stands, grabs her stuff, and walks away from the park bench she had been sitting on without a word. Behind her, Harry makes a huffy noise and follows Louis, her long legs catching up quickly. “I didn’t know you were a dance major, is all.” _Well I have a degree in almost everything else, I had to get creative._

Louis scoffs, “What? Because people who like black and have tattoos can’t be good dancers?” Louis looks over at Harry and, _yup that did it_ , she’s pissed. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Louis says, “Because _you don’t know me_.” She tries her best to look scathing as possible, “So now that I’ve got my notes back, I would mighty appreciate it if you’d leave me alone.”

Louis is about to turn the last corner before her dorm, when she feels that hand on her elbow _again_ , this time pulling her away from the sidewalk, and back the way they came, passing Louis’ bench, and ending up at the picnic tables in front of the library. Part of Louis knows she ought to protest being pulled along, but she can’t find it within her body to fight this; can’t fight how good it feels to touch her girl. Harry pushes her against one side of the table and sits down herself at the other, arms crossed and waiting for Louis to sit.

“What. Is. Your. _Problem_.” Harry’s eyes are narrowed like slits, her sweet, pink lips scrunched up in a pout and her eyebrows furrowed in anger; she looks _adorable_ , “I get you being rude the first time we met. Well,” she purses her lips, “I don’t, but I sort of do. Then you were so _sweet_ when I actually did something that probably should have bothered you, then every time I see you, you practically _sprint_ in the other direction, and when I, _out of the kindness of my heart,_ bring you back your notes, you’re rude _again_ and accuse _me_ of stereotyping _you_ when you put me in a box from your first _glance_ at me,” she takes a deep breath, “Like, I’m sorry if I freaked you out the first time I met you, Louis, but I—”

“How do you know my name?”

Her cheeks flash pink and her eyes drop to the table, _caught you, sugar_. “My friend Niall knows you, you both were in a recital together a few months ago, before I transferred here.” Louis nods, recalling a happy, blonde ball of energy and captain of the Tap/Jazz team. Louis liked her; she made good dance-cup jokes. 

Louis sighs, “I’m sorry, I have been rude, but I was just trying to be clear, we _don’t_ —”

“Yeah. I get it. We don’t know each other.” Harry rolls her eyes, “I just wanna know if you _want_ to, because despite your atrocious manners,” her Hazza’s smile turns saucy, “I _like_ you. I wanna see you more than just when I’m physically accosting you or returning stolen goods.”

_God, but do I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you._

Louis shakes her head, “I don’t date, sugar. M’ sorry, it’s just—” she shrugs her shoulders, “not my style.” She makes to stand up, but Harry’s hand plops down on top of her own, warm and soft and steady. “What makes you think I wanna date you? I don’t date strangers, _sugar_ ,” she says mockingly, “I was thinking maybe we could be, oh I don’t know, _friends_? You stop staring at me from across the café and say hello instead? You help me study for bio seeing as you’re in the same section as I am?” Louis’ eyebrows scrunch, confused, and Harry’s smile widens, “You have your schedule in the front of the notebook,” she winks. _Cheeky girl._

Harry pulls put her phone and opens it, typing a little and handing it to Louis, “Put in your number. I’ll text you mine, and we can set up a date for a cram sesh,” she grimaces, “Because there is no other way I’m gonna pass this exam without some sort of divine intervention in the wee hours of the morning.” Louis lets out a little laugh at that, and Harry looks up, surprised but pleased. Louis plugs in her number and hands it back, smiling.

_Oh my baby, how did I ever think I could resist you?_

“Friends?” Harry asks, grinning.

“Friends.” Louis agrees.

++++++

Harry practically skips back to her dorm.

 _Yes yes yes! She said we could be fri-ends she said we could be fri-ends._ Harry sings to herself as she shimmies up the stairs to her floor and down the hallway to her room. She unlocks her door when she reaches it, walking in to find Liam on her bed, studying and eating a cheeseburger bigger than her head.

Harry walks into the room, shaking her hips back and forth and pointing at Liam, waiting for the long-haired brunette to notice.

“I’m not going to reward you with my attention; I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Harry slumps dramatically, “Liiiiii, come onnnnn. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Liam finally looks up from her notes, swallowing a bite of her burger with her ‘disapproving’ face on. “It _is_ a big deal, Haz…she has no aura. I don’t trust it.”

Harry drops her backpack on the floor and flops back onto her bed, directly parallel to Liam’s. She lays back, lacing her fingers over her stomach and stretches out, kicking off her shoes. “I just, feel this,” _need. A low, desperate itch that needs to be scratched; an ache that only she can soothe; puzzle piece missing that it looks like she’ll fit, an addiction to the peace and silence inside my own head that I haven’t felt in too fucking long,_ “pull, towards her. She’s special; I can feel it.”

Liam shakes her head, turning back to her notes, “She’s got no aura, and she’s lying about something. She looks guilty.”

“That’s so broad. ‘She looks guilty.’” Harry imitates Liam’s deeper voice, “What is she guilty of, Li? Being hot? Making me horny?”

Liam snorts a laugh, “You do that all on your own.” She shakes her head, “I don’t know what it is. The aura thing just _bothers_ me. I’ve never seen a human soul without an aura. _Never_. And I’ve been looking at auras much longer than you.” She sighs, “Just be careful.”

++++++

_February 14, 1922_

_The quiet morning greets Louis in its usual way; their apartment is fucking freezing. You would think after two or three years of their landlord lying about getting the heat fixed, Louis would stop expecting it to happen. But she doesn’t blame Mr. Carson; he’s struggling. They all are these days. So Louis just curls tighter in their blankets, pressing herself more firmly against Harry’s back, leeching off her body heat._

_But Harry seems to have other ideas, and rolls over and starts poking Louis, then tugging on her locket chain. “Baby. Bayyyy-by. Wake up babe. Lou. Louuuuuu.” Louis snuffles into her pillow and squirms away from Harry’s prodding fingers. But said fingers then becomes a full-blown hot mess of hair and skin that lays on top of her back; Louis isn’t going to protest, at least she’s warmer. Harry huffs and gets off of Louis, turning her over so that the sun is in her eyes._

_Louis blinks blearily, “What?” She asks grumpily, covering her eyes with her forearm. Harry pulls her arm away, leaning over her, “Don’t you know what day it is?” Louis rolls her eyes behind her closed lids, “Pay day?” Harry hits her. “Ow! What? What day is it H?” Harry bounces up and down on the bed excitedly, “It’s Valentine’s!! It’s Saint Valentine’s, baby.” She leans down all the way and lays on Louis’ front, pressing her lips to Louis’ softly, “My first Valentine’s with my sweetheart,” she says, voice reverent as she brushes a lock of Louis’ hair behind her ear. Louis’ll never understand what she did for Harry to look at her like she hung the moon, when Harry is the brightest, most brilliant star of them all._

_“‘That so?” Louis says sweetly, running a hand up Harry’s spine and twisting it in her hair to gently push Harry’s mouth back to her own, “Happy Valentine’s, babydoll. C’mere.” Louis rolls onto her side and pulls Harry close so that they’re touching from head to foot._

_Louis brushes Harry’s hair out of her face and starts really kissing her, opening her mouth and breathing in the soft sleepy scent of their soap mixed with clean sheets. Harry lets out a soft sound, wrapping her thigh around Louis’ bum and tangling her leg between Louis’. Louis lifts her thigh, sliding it farther between Harry’s and listens when her girl lets out a breathy moan, **caught ya, sugar**_.

 _“That why you **really**_ _woke me, sugar? S’ my pretty girl lonely?” Louis moves her hand down to Harry’s bum, pressing against it to help her grind against Louis’ thigh, which she does, whimpering while Louis leans her head down to kiss all over her neck, soft, gentle, and barely-there._

_“Lou, Lou, bay—by. **Lou**.” Harry gasps, pushing Louis flat on her back and straddling her hips. Harry looks like a damn **dream** above her; hair long and loose, only wearing her knickers and one of Louis’ old nightgowns, so short that it can’t even be called mid-thigh anymore, patched crisscross-like at the knee with bunches of ripped fabric roses clustered at her throat. Louis runs her hands from Harry’s hips all the way up, brushing her hand over her cheek and cupping her face. “You’re so beautiful,” She murmurs, Harry’s smile is breathtaking, “the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. How did I get you? I’m so lucky. So blessed.” Louis reaches up to hold Harry’s face when she kisses her, “Love of my life, you are.” _

_The look Harry gives her says a thousand things, all of them sweet and tender, but what comes out of her mouth is, “You absolute sap, Louis Tomlinson.” Louis throws her head back, laughing, then gasping when Harry comes close to kiss all over Louis’ neck and run her hands down Louis’ chest and rub where her nipples are sticking out from under the thin layer of fabric she’s wearing._

_Louis pulls Harry down so that they’re pressed together and then rolls them over so that Louis is straddling Harry instead. Louis looks down at her girl, all flushed pink with bitten-red lips and eyes so dark that she can barely see the ring of green in them. The locket swings in the small amount of air between them, Harry leans up to bring the warm metal to her mouth, pressing a kiss to it._

_“Look at you.” Louis says, kissing all over her face and sliding a hand between them to slip into Harry’s panties, reveling in the mewl that she lets out when Louis’ slides a finger between her folds. “Legs spread and skirt up just for me…pretty lil’ dame. My very own blue movie, aren’t you? Are you my blue movie? My blue, blue babydoll?” Harry lets out a full-out moan at that, spreading her legs even more when Louis starts rubbing little circles around her clit._

_“You gonna answer sugar?”_

_“ **God** ,” Harry gasps, “Ye- **yes**. Fuck, Lou, ff-fuck.” Her girl’s back arches off the bed as she tries to grind harder on Louis’ finger, biting her lip and shutting her eyes. “I-I-in me. Get in me, Lou, **God**_. _”_

_“What do you want baby blue? You want my fingers or my mouth?” Louis asks sweetly, still rubbing at Harry’s clit and kissing her blushed cheeks, “You tell me, baby. You tell me and I’ll give it to you. Won’t deny my sugar anything on the sweetest day of the year.” Harry lets out a breathless laugh, then sucks in a deep breath, squirming and whimpering, until she reaches a hand up to pull Louis’ face to hers, forcing their mouths to meet in a mess of tongues and biting each other’s lips._

_Harry opens her eyes wide, looking right at Louis, “Put your fingers in me goddammit so I can get my face between those baby makin’ thighs.” Louis laughs again, quickly cut off by Harry’s kiss and Louis takes the hint and gets busy, slipping her hand further into Harry’s knickers and sliding her middle and pointer fingers inside her._

_Later, after Harry comes so hard she shakes and then licks Louis out like a fucking **champ** , they’re both naked in their bed, sharing a cigarette. Louis takes a drag then knocks off the ash into the mug they keep next to their bed, sliding her hand up and down Harry’s arm where she’s cuddled up against Louis. Harry holds out a hand for the fag, trying to take a pull like Louis and coughing, causing Louis’ eyes to crinkle up in a smile and pull her a little closer asking if she’s okay. Harry pinches her nipple, making Louis squawk, and hands it back to her, tucking her face into Louis’ neck. Louis laughs and presses a kiss to her hair. “I love you, Harry.” _

_“I love you too, Lou. Happy Valentine’s Day.”_

Louis sits straight up with a gasp on her lips. She closes her eyes, _a dream_.

She sighs, curling into a ball and wrapping her arms around her knees, holding back tears with shaky breaths. She looks across the room and sees Z is still fast asleep in her bed, mouth open and face slack. Louis hops off her bed and pads over to Zayn’s sniffling as she shoves the dark-haired girl’s shoulder. Z makes a face, but doesn’t open her eyes, smacking her peachy-brown lips together. “Bad dream,” she asks raspily, “or good dream?”

“Good dream.”

Z makes a sympathetic noise, “Those are always worse for me too. Cuddle?” Louis wipes at her face with the tail of her cut-off tank. “Ye-yeah. Please,” she whispers, voice cracking. Zayn scooches over in bed, opening her arms. Louis pulls herself onto Z’s bed and fits her back to Zayn’s front, relaxing as Zayn curls around her. Z plays with Louis’ hair, and Louis breathes in the soothing perfume of oil pastels, lilacs, and _Zayn_ that has been her only constant throughout her very long life.

“C’mon, Lou” she hears Z whisper sleepily into her ear, “Let it rest. Go to sleep.” So Louis shuts her eyes and leans harder into Zayn, forcing herself to think about anything but Harry.

++++++

Harry wakes up startled, for the _fourth time this week_ , running her hands over her skin, shocked and upset, to find that she’s not wearing a thin nightgown with patches at the knees and roses around the collar and that the thick perfume of vanilla, cigarettes, cheap beer, and wood smoke is absent from the bed on which she lays.

++++++

**Where are you sitting???**

Louis sighs when she sees Harry’s text, but types out a reply.

_Why?_

**So we can sit together!! Duuuhhh!!**

_Who says I want to sit with you?_

**:(**

_Middle section, halfway up. I’m wearing blue._

**!!!!!!**

Louis doesn’t look up from her notebook and crosses her ankles in front of her, feeling Harry’s warm, bouncy aura floating down the aisle and plopping down next to her. “Hiiiiii,” Harry says breathlessly, “This is my friend—” “Niall. Niall Horan.” The blonde crowned by a vibrant yellow and jade aura on Harry’s other side interrupts in a soft Irish brogue, leaning around Harry to wave, “Good to see you again, Louis. Harry here hasn’t shut the fuck up about you since she attacked you the other day. I tell ya, Liam and I—” “Okay, that’s enough!” Harry says, covering Niall’s mouth with a sheepish smile on her face. _Adorable._

“Liam?” Louis asks. “Liam Payne, my other friend! She’s a machinery and chemistry major.” Harry replies. Louis nods thoughtfully as the teacher in the front of the lecture hall calls everyone to attention and starts class.

Later, when Louis, Harry, and Niall are walking out, Louis plans to make her escape, find Zayn and snatch a smoke or two before her technical ballet class that afternoon. She raises her hand to wave goodbye when Niall cuts her off, “Wanna grab lunch with us? Harry and I don’t have class til two.” Louis is just about to decline when she glances at Harry, whose eyes look so hopeful that it just about breaks Louis’ heart. “Sure.” She says, defeated, “S ’okay if I invite my roommate? I was gonna get some food with her anyway.”

Niall nods, pleased, “The more the merrier!” Louis sees Harry’s smile grow warm and grateful as Louis taps Zayn’s number on her phone. Louis heart hurts just looking at her.

“‘Lo?” Zayn’s raspy voice comes over the phone, “Lou? What’s up?”

“You just wake up, sunshine?” Louis asks with a smile on her face. Zayn snorts over the phone, “What do you think babe?” Louis laughs quietly, forcing her voice to sound level. “My friends Niall and _Harry_ wanted to know if you wanted to grab some lunch with us?”

Zayn makes a sad noise, “Oh Lou. Do you actually want to go or do you want me to give you an excuse out?”

Louis shuts her eyes, and turns away from the two other girls, who are chatting quietly and not paying attention to her, “Both. I—I want both. Tell me what I should do, Z, I’m,” she takes a deep breath _calm down_ , “Tell me what to do. I need you.” Zayn makes a soothing noise over the phone.

“Where do they want to eat?”

“I didn’t ask. Probably the U.”

“Ok, love. I’ll be there. Don’t stress.”

She turns back around after she hangs up, and smiles at Niall and Harry. “She said she’ll meet us at the U, if that’s ok?” Niall nods, grinning, “That sounds awesome.” Harry looks a little more subdued, but still happy as she nods and the three of them head to the student union. Niall talks about a mile a minute and Louis has no problem keeping up with her, cracking jokes and gossiping about different dance teachers that they’ve both had. Louis finds out that both Harry and Niall are juniors, and that Harry transferred here just this spring semester because she wanted to join the university’s _botany_ program. _Of course you’re getting a degree in fucking plants. You fucking hippie Harry Styles I swear to god._

Harry doesn’t say much the whole walk there, and when Louis sees Zayn standing in front of the building smoking a cigarette, Louis can’t help but sigh in relief. She waves at Z, who waves back, and walks over to pull her in for a hug and cheek-kiss. She turns back to Harry and Niall, smiling, “Niall, Harry, this is my best friend since the dawn of time, Zayn. Z, this is Harry and Niall.” Z smiles her ‘happy’ smile instead of her ‘model’ smile and waves at them both, offering the end of her cig to Louis while wrapping an arm around her waist. Louis takes it and gratefully finishes it off while Niall and Z chat about majors and shared classes.

They walk into the U and grab a corner booth, tossing backpacks on the ground haphazardly. She turns to Zayn, “What do you want?” The dark-haired girl considers. “Get me whatever you get with some chips.” Louis grins, “You got it, babe.”

Harry and Niall walk over to the food court with Louis, Niall heads off to get some pizza while Harry and Louis wait in line for sandwiches. Harry is oddly silent, picking at her fuzzy lavender sweater and then her fingernails. Louis raises an eyebrow at her, but Harry ignores it and whips out her phone, tapping the screen to pretend like she’s doing something.

“Harry?” Louis asks once they have all their food and are waiting in line to pay, “You ok?” Harry shrugs, her face pouty and her eyes on the floor. Louis pulls up Harry’s feelings aura, which she usually blocks just for the principle of privacy, and when she sees the dark, forest-green threads curling their way around Harry’s heart chakra she can’t help but fight back a little smile, _oh honey, I love you_. “Yeah.” Harry says, reluctantly pulling a smile on her face, “I’m just a little tired is all.” Louis nods, “I know the feeling. I’m pretty sure I could fall asleep in class most of the time. Even the ones where I’m dancing.” Harry’s laugh is small, but it’s there. Louis counts it as a victory.

+++++++

Harry knows she’s being ridiculous. _She knows_.

She’s been at lunch with Niall, Louis, and Louis’ friend _Zayn_ (another aura-and-emotion-less mystery) for the past hour and a half and she’s about to blow a gasket. It’s a pain in the ass enough that she’s madly in crush with the hot, _hot_ enigma that is Louis Tomlinson, in all of her tight-pants-wearing, mental-mute-being, hourglass-figure-having, sex-eyes-giving, aura-less mystery , but now the ‘I don’t date, sugar,’ thing has a whole new added layer with her hanging all over this dark-haired, flawless-brown-skinned, brown-with-gold-speckles-eyed _goddess_.

Because she could understand if Louis didn’t like relationships. Like, maybe she just broke up with someone after a long relationship or maybe she’s aro/ace spec or maybe she just doesn’t like Harry, (which Harry absolutely _refuses_ to believe because, _come on_ , the girl literally defended Harry from mean boys and saved her from getting blood all over her favorite Burberry sweater.) but the way Louis is cuddling up to Zayn, giggling and touching her face and getting her food is driving Harry _up the fucking wall_.

She’s not jealous. She’s not. She has no right to be.

(Except for that the voice in the back of her head that _screams_ every time she gets within a twenty foot radius of Louis is going fucking nuts, because deep down in the very pit of Harry’s soul she actually believes that this absolutely wonderful, amazing, stunning, _perfect_ girl that she’s seen on four separate occasions over a span of less than three weeks and most likely hates her _belongs_ with her, belongs _to_ her. And she hates how fucking caveman that sounds but the feeling of _calm_ and _home_ and _safety_ when she’s with Louis, that feeling of peace, that unattainable silence. All of the thoughts she doesn’t want to hear disappearing and the emotions that aren’t hers fizzling out and the auras that are so bright she has to wears sunglasses on rainy days fade when she’s with Louis and it makes her want to casually fold herself into Louis’ arms and never, never leave.)

(And that’s not even mentioning the _torturous_ dreams that have been haunting Harry’s sleep for weeks. They vary in length, setting, and frame of mind, but they always have the common element of Louis, and the two of them being in love and its fucking _killing_ her because she has to look at this incredible girl every day and feel this pull toward her that her own mind is making up out of thin air.)

She’s _extremely_ jealous.

Harry leans back into the booth next to Niall and takes another pull from her Starbucks white-girl-special. She tries to keep the sour look off her face when Zayn whispers something to Louis and practically sticks her tongue in her ear to say it. (Harry’s so fucking jealous her whole eyeballs are now probably forest green.)

_You’re acting like a fucking freak, you know that right?_

Harry rolls her eyes and digs the heel of her sneaker into the top of Niall’s foot under the table.

_Jesus, Harry! That fucking hurt! Cool it!_

Harry bites on her straw contemptuously and rolls her eyes again because _for god’s sake, Niall you don’t need to think so fucking loud when I’m right next to you._

It doesn’t even really phase her anymore, the auras, the mind-reading, the emotion-sucking. It’s really odd for Harry to think about how two years ago she had never experienced any of it, that two years ago she was normal. People acquire supernatural abilities in all sorts of ways, (from what Harry has read at least) for her it was NDE, a near death experience.

Harry doesn’t like to think about the fire; the way the heat curled under the door and how she heard her sister choke to death on smoke in the room next to her. She doesn’t remember being pulled out of her house and being resuscitated, she remembers holding hands with her Mom and sister, walking in a field of flowers. She remembers the birds, the sun overhead, how good everything smelled, most of all she remembers feeling happy. She was wandering a little farther behind her mom and Gemma, then she looked up and she was alone. She had been terrified, watching as the sun eclipsed above her, sucking all the warmth and life in the field around her. The flowers died one by one, the birds dropped to the ground and Harry screamed, pulling at her hair, feeling like her heart was banging against her ribs, trying to bust out, and that’s how she woke. In the back of an ambulance with her shirt cut open and a man pressing the heel of his hand into her naked chest, wailing her head off.

The next few weeks had been a mess of family members and funerals and people crying on her and if Harry’s completely honest she was so numb that she wasn’t even really a person for quite some time. She doesn’t remember the exact moment when the auras started showing up, but they did. Slowly at first, one here one there, and some primal part of Harry’s brain just _knew_ what they meant. Knew that the greenish grayish mix curled around her cousin’s temples meant she was angry at and jealous of Harry for living through the fire and taking up more space in her grandmother’s already cramped house. Knew that her math teacher in high school beat his wife from the deep red spots dripping off his hands like blood. The mind-reading came not long after, and the whole involuntarily-feeling-the-emotions-of-people-through-touch thing followed.

She didn’t tell anyone, not because she was scared or worried that someone would hurt her, but mostly because she just didn’t care. For that first year, she didn’t really care about anything at all.

After dealing with her ‘gifts’ for a few months, the ache in her head trumped the lack of feeling in her chest, and she finally decided she would investigate her powers. So she did the only logical thing; she fucking googled it.

Sorting through a few weeks amount of search results pretty quickly, she found a NDE clairvoyant support chatroom. She joined it immediately, and that’s how she met Liam and Niall. Liam has powers of her own, reading auras and thoughts like Harry and compulsion; a powerful and frightening gift that she never uses. Niall, on the other hand is a 100% normal human that created the chatroom in honor of her older sister. Niall doesn’t talk about it, but Harry involuntarily knows that Niall’s sister was born clairvoyant, and went mad with loneliness and depression in her 20’s that eventually caused her to commit suicide, and left Niall alone in the world. The minute she met both of them and they created their small, dysfunctional family was the beginning of her starting to feel like maybe she’d be ok someday.

But.

Back to Louis.

Harry glances at her across the table as Louis looks at something on her phone real quick, a small crease of concentration pressing itself gently into her tan skin, right in between her perfectly delicate eyebrows. _Why are you so fucking beautiful?_ Harry puts her chin in her hand when she looks at her, adoration probably crystal clear on her face as she does so. The purest blue that eyes can be grace her features, the softest little apple cheeks, gorgeously long, soft, brown lashes (no _way_ that’s mascara), perfect little mouth the color of a sunset peach. If only that beautiful face would put Harry out of her misery and kiss her and marry her and let her carry their children.

Harry sighs. She knows that Zayn is obviously way more into Louis then Louis is into the dark-haired beauty herself. Harry can tell by the way Zayn seems to be leading all of the touching, and Louis only reciprocates when she has to so it won’t look awkward. Harry can also tell by the way that Louis _totally_ keeps glancing at her bra-less-ness poking through her favorite lavender sweater. Harry _totally_ isn’t letting it go to her head.

But even so, the thing that kills her the most is the way Louis sounded on the phone talking to Zayn, _“Tell me what to do. I need you.”_ As if it was so awful for Louis to have to eat one lunch with Harry, even with bubbly Niall as her bubbly-buffer-self to keep them from feeling too awkward or eye-fucking each other into an oblivion (because _believe_ her, the eye-fucking is _mutual_ , she and Niall have _discussed_ it.) She just wants to understand _why_ Louis jumps from being tooth-rottingly sweet and caring, charming and funny, to being a grade A+ asshole who ignores her, pretends she can’t stand her, and acts like it’s a fucking _trial_ to spend time with her.

_H! Hellooooo, earth to H?_

Harry looks up from the table to several concerned glances. Louis slides a hand across the table in her direction, “You ok, sugar?” beside her, almost unnoticeably, Zayn stiffens. _That’s fucking right bitch,_ (the voice in the back of her head screeches) _you may get to stick your tongue in her ear but I’m her sugar._

Harry smiles apologetically, “Sorry, I kinda spaced for a sec, what were we talking about?”

+++++++

_June 18, 1868_

_Someone is following Harry._

_She had just left Louis’ home on the edge of town, despite the older girl’s begging that “At least let me put you in my carriage, my love, I do not want any harm to come to you on your walk home. You do not know who could be lurking in the dark, waiting,” she had said with a nervous look on her perfect face._

_“Darling,” Harry said soothingly, wrapping her arms around Louis’ waist, cinched tight underneath a corset and several layers of the finest silk, “You need not worry a bit. I am more than capable of walking to my house in my own hometown.” She smiled, tucking one of Louis’ perfectly coifed curls behind her delicate ear. “And I musn’t stay here tonight because Mama and Daddy would be so frightfully worried I daresay they’d send a search party.” She let out a little giggle, prompting Louis to smile, “Besides, I cannot even imagine what the staff would think of my leaving this house in the morning wearing the same dress!”_

_Louis had chuckled and pulled Harry in for a soft but passionate kiss. She raised her hands to cup Harry’s cheeks and touched their foreheads together, “Be cautious and quick in your journey, you are holding my most prized possession right,” she placed one hand on Harry’s chest, directly above her heart, “here. Please take the utmost care of it?”_

_“Of course, my darling.”_

_“I love you, with all my heart.”_

_“I love you too.”_

_So Harry had set off into the night, with Louis watching with stars in her eyes from the doorway of her spacious plantation home. And now, as Harry is hastening down a path that she may as well have learned to walk on and keeps seeing shadows out of the corner of her eye. She walks further up the cobble-stoned street with her eyes to the ground, her breaths quickening in her chest. The feel of eyes on her back becomes overwhelming so she cannot help but stop mid-step and whip around, looking in every direction to see—_

_Nothing. Harry puts a hand to her forehead, sighing at her own silliness and turning to make the rest of her way towards home when suddenly, every lamppost extinguishes, drowning the street in the night. Harry’s heart jumps into her throat and she backs up into the nearest wall she can find, trying to make herself small._

_She can hear footsteps so she covers her mouth to quiet her breathing, praying that the darkness will shield her from the stranger coming near. The footsteps pause, and then a shrill, tinkling laugh pierces the stillness. “Oh, Harry,” a feminine voice says, “there you are. How lovely for us to finally meet in this century. I see that you haven’t changed that much,” Harry feels a hand reach out and snatch her arm, using her surprise to throw her to the ground. “Still the same skinny frame, hardly any curves to you at all. Do you even have a bust built into your corset yet?” Harry tries to stand up from the ground as the voice laughs, but she’s pushed down once more, a kick to her chest that makes breathing in painful, “Same ratty, knotty hair the color of mud to match those moldy green eyes, it’s a wonder what Louis sees in you.”_

_Harry’s blood runs cold and she backs away from the voice, this time finally standing and squaring her shoulders against the invisible threat, “You stay_ away _from Louis, whoever you are, this has nothing to do with her.”_

_“Oh, Harry, Sweetheart,” a beautiful, dainty-looking woman with blonde hair steps out into the moonlight with a gun raised before her and a smile on her face, “It has everything to do with Louis. But don’t worry, honey, you’ll be dead long before you have to worry about any of that.”_

_Then the gun fires, and all Harry can see—_

—Liam’s face full of concern and worry as she shakes Harry’s shoulders in the dark, and Harry can suddenly feel that she’s, she’s wet? Why is she wet? And her heart is racing and suddenly the rest of the world comes into focus and Liam is almost shouting—“Okay? Harry you’ve been yelling like crazy in your sleep what’s happening? Are you okay, are you hurt? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” Harry says tiredly, putting a hand to her forehead, which is damp like the top of her nightshirt, hair, and the bed she’s laying on, “Did you pour water on me?”

Liam sighs and climbs off of Harry’s bed, standing up and bracing her arms behind her head like she always does when she’s thinking, “Of course I did! You weren’t waking up and you were yelling loud enough to wake the dead. I had to do something before you woke the whole floor.”

Harry processes these words as she stands up, strips the sheets off her bed and her top, throwing them all in her laundry basket as she walks over to her dresser and pulls on a clean shirt. Then she plops back onto her bed, only covered by the mattress cover and says, “Well if that will be all I’m going back to sleep. Liam. I’m exhausted.”

“Like hell you are,” Liam says as she pulls Harry out of her own bed, shrieking and kicking, and practically throws Harry onto her own, “tell me what that dream was about. Was it about Louis? I thought you said those had stopped. Why are you lying Haz?” Liam stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed over her chest and eyes tight with worry.

“It wasn’t about Louis, it was just a run-of-the-mill nightmare. I don’t really want to talk about it, Lee.” Harry bites her lip and tries to look even more pathetic than she already feels, “please, Lee, I just want to go to sleep and forget it.”

For a second, Liam looks like she’s about to cave, maybe let Harry crawl into bed with her and sleep it off, but then a resounding knock comes from the door, and the two of them turn toward it. “I’m here! I’m here, let me in Lee, goddammit!” the Irish-accented voice gasps between pants.

Liam opens the door to allow in Niall, who like Harry and Liam must have been asleep considering all she’s wearing are flip-flops and an oversized Derby County football t-shirt. She immediately goes over to Harry, collecting her in her arms for a cuddle. “Could hear the two of you yelling from two floors up, what happened?”

Harry tries to say she’s fine again, but all that comes out of her mouth is a gasp and without warning a flood of tears come to her eyes as she sobs into Niall’s throat. She feels Liam come over and sit next to her, both girls wrapping her up in comfort as she cries. A few moments later, when she’s calm enough to talk, she pulls back from the embraces of her two best friends and smiles the same watery smile at both of them.

“Now.” Niall says, tucking a lock of damp and knotty hair behind Harry’s ear, “tell ol’ Ni what’s wrong, sweets. Bad dream?”

Harry nods, putting her head on Liam’s shoulder, “It was this awful dream, I was coming home from—from some place and I got attacked in the street by this woman that looked so _familiar_ , but I know I’ve never seen her before.” She sighs, and feels Niall patting her hand while Liam presses a kiss to the top of her hair. “And I don’t know what it means and it freaked me out but,” she sits up, looking at Niall then at Liam, “it was just a dream and I’m fine. And I really want to go back to bed, but _someone_ ,” she says with mock-annoyance, “Poured water all over my bed.”

“I have a solution,” Niall says with a grin, “Harry sandwich up in my bed? I have more roooom.” She sing-songs as she stand up and offers Harry a hand. Harry takes it, standing up next to Niall and making a pouty face at Liam, who sighs in a way that it supposed to be long-suffering but only comes out fond, “Okay, let’s go.” The other two girls squeal as they collect blankets and keys and wallets to go and sleep on the third floor.

And as Harry puts on shoes and wraps her duvet around her waist so she _can_ get away with not wearing pants in the hallway, (fuck-you-very-much, _Liam_ ) she picks up her backpack so she’ll have it in the morning and she can see her bio notes, the ones she very carefully copied from Louis, she almost can forget the dream. Can almost forget the stranger that shot her, however many decades ago and how it might have been Louis’ fault.

Almost.

+++++++

Louis stood out in front of the science building, cig in her hand, hunching her shoulders to keep her hood over her head and out of the rain. She looks up and sees— _oh my god_.

Harry is wearing a loose hanging sweater and some tie-up joggers that shape her legs perfectly, but all of that is practically unnoticeable compared to the _gigantic fucking rainbow umbrella_ she’s carrying. She can’t help but smile fondly; nobody else but her girl. Harry skips up the steps and heads toward Louis, immediately standing extra close to get her out of the rain. Louis smiles and takes another drag, blowing it in a different direction of the wind. Harry waits in silence until Louis is done with her cig and has ground it under her trainer before they both walk inside, shaking off the rain.

Louis has been living with this for the past two months.

Harry has slowly but deftly wiggled her way into Louis’ day to day life. They have class together Monday-Wednesday-Friday at 11, then Harry always finds an excuse to get lunch with Louis after, and Tuesday and Thursday Harry always seems to find Louis hanging out in front of the arts building before and after her ballet intensive, and any time in between lectures when Louis is definitely not expecting to see her. Harry looks smugger and smugger every time they ‘spontaneously’ meet up in odd places, and Louis has taken to accepting defeat with grace.

Part of her still wants to push Harry away, looks at her full cheeks and bright eyes and _knows_ that she deserves better. Deserves to have a full life, even if Louis isn’t in it. But then that weak voice in the back of her head says that being _around_ her can’t kill her. That fate probably won’t be angry if Louis is just a friend Harry had in college, a friend that Harry will forget once Louis’ transfer into the arts college next year is complete.

Louis takes in the warmth in Harry’s eyes and the sweet little smile that she pulls out only when she’s looking at Louis. She gets this for a few more months, mere months, and then she’ll be gone again. The thought makes her want to die, walking away from this girl and not turning back. But she’ll do it, when the time comes. She will.

Louis takes a deep breath and smiles back at Harry, leaning over to pull a plastic bag out of her backpack. “Want a cookie? Z and I made ‘em last night?”

Harry raises an eyebrow, “You made cookies?”

“Ok, so Zayn made them and I ate some of the batter.”

Harry’s eyebrow raises higher.

“Ok, so I ate a lot of the batter.” Louis extends the bag, “Do you want a cookie or not, sugar.” Harry grins as she takes one of the chocolate-chip cookies and bites it in half, chewing contentedly. “These are good. Give Zayn my compliments.”

Louis laughs, “I will.” She watches Harry eat, making little happy noises and cheeks dimpling as she chews. _I love you._ She clears her throat, “You ready to go in, sugar? Or are we waiting for Ni?” Harry shakes her head, still chewing. She covers her mouth delicately with her hand and talks around the cookie in her mouth, “Nah. Niall has decided that she’s having a three-day weekend and is still asleep. I’m writing the notes for her.” Louis smiles and gestures toward the lecture hall door, “Ladies first.” Harry laughs and grabs Louis’ hand, locking their fingers together, and pulls her through the door after her. Louis tries not to flinch when warmth spreads out from where their fingers are touching and takes a deep breath; it’s going to be a long day.

As she walks through the door she feels her phone vibrate against her thigh, and stops, pulling it out and seeing that Perrie is calling her. She waves Harry on into the classroom, saying, “Save me a seat,” and answers the call with cheer, “Hey, Pez, what’s up, honey?”

“Oh nothing much, Lou!” her sweet little voice comes through the phone, “I was just wondering if you’re free tonight? I’ve been at work for the past two rehearsals and missed some changes. Madame said I should learn them from you? I was thinking maybe we could get together tonight? In an hour or two? Because I’m about to go into class and I’m guessing you are too.”

Louis doesn’t answer her, knowing that she promised Harry they could study after this, until the silence has gone on too long and Perrie says, “If you’re busy that’s ok, I can learn it from someone else I’ll just tell Madame—”

“No! No, Pez I’m sorry I was just thinking, I have a, um, a study thing? Right after this class. So would it be okay if we didn’t get together until tonight? Maybe around seven?”

“That honestly sounds perfect. I’ll meet you at the studio?”

“Sounds awesome. See you later, Pez.”

“Bye Lou!” Perrie says brightly, “Thanks so much!” Louis says good bye again, and then hangs up sliding her phone in her pocket and heading through the classroom doors.

Later, after class, Louis and Harry walk out of the lecture hall side-by-side, their hands brushing every few moments and sending shivers down Louis’ spine. She gestures toward the student union silently and Harry nods, absentmindedly picking at one of her fingernails. The pair race up the steps, laughing and shoving each other much to the annoyance of every other person trying to get down the stairs, and head straight for the Starbucks in the middle of the food court. They stand next to each other in line, Louis pulling at Harry’s curls and Harry giggling and smacking her hands away, and they quickly order their drinks (Harry gets some sugary mess with whipped cream and Louis gets a black, vanilla cold brew) and stand off to the side to wait.

Harry turns around to grab straws for both of them, pieces of her long, beautiful, hair start falling out of the spiral on the top of her head and Louis has to hold back the urge to reach out and pull them loose, run her fingers through them and wrap her arms around Harry’s waist to bury her face in them, breathe in their scent and finally _relax_ for the first time in—

Louis inhales sharply and cracks her neck, taking a step back, away from Harry, who turns around with two wrapped straws and a brilliant smile on her face, which Louis—slightly painfully—returns. They stare into each other’s eyes for a moment more, the whole world stopping around them, until Louis blinks, breaking the spell. “Head back to mine?” Harry asks, gesturing lamely to the building’s exit as she hands Louis a straw.

“Yeah, sure. We can go over this lecture’s notes.”

“We just _took_ those notes. My brain needs a break.” Harry whines, grabbing hers and Louis’ drinks from where the barista just set them down, and following Louis, who has already started walking toward the door.

Louis shakes her head, pulling the handle of the door open and stepping outside into the misting rain. “That’s why we need to go over them. They’re fresh in your mind, you’ll retain them easier.” She hands Harry a straw just as the curly-haired girl passes Louis’ drink over into her waiting hand. Harry shoves the straw in with a sigh, flipping her hair out of her eyes. She pushes her plush, rose-colored lip out in a pout as she takes a sip of her drink, and Louis has to roll her eyes to draw attention away from how _good_ Harry looks.

They walk to Harry’s building, the one to the left of Louis’, in amicable silence broken only by playful shoving and laughter. They both scan their I.D.s at the front door, Harry waving to the desk worker and leading Louis up two flights of stairs and down the hall to a door two off from the end. “Liam has class til three, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.” Harry says with a grin as she jiggles her key into the door.

Once its open Louis follows Harry inside to a room much like Louis’ own, but instead decorated brightly. Half the room is all done in shades of blue with accents of gold, a polka-dotted duvet and little succulents and cacti in the corners. The bed is book-ended on both sides with a dresser and a desk and chair, with a window on the wall opposite the door covered in a wispy white curtain that does nothing to block out the daylight, _Harry’s side_. The other half is dressed in light pink and white, with lots of roses on the bedspread and notebooks scattered on the desk and dresser. Out of the corner of her eye Louis can see several books with titles involving the words ‘chemistry’ and ‘machinery’ stuffed with crumpled pieces of lined paper and colored post-it tabs.

Harry plops down and stretches out onto the bed with the blue and gold, tossing her bag onto one of the four little circular carpets on the floor and placing her drink on the desk behind the head of the bed. Louis smiles as she drops her bag on the floor and leans down to pull out her notebooks, walking over to Harry and shoving at her legs until she moves them and sits up, crossing her legs beneath her. Louis places her drink on the floor in front of Harry’s bed, plops the notebooks between them, then snatches Harry’s bag and fishes out her biology binder and a pen.

“C’mon H, stop your pouting and let me learn you some science,” she jokes, smiling flirtily and offering Harry the books. Louis looks up at Harry, whose expression immediately dims, eyes dropping to her lap and hands fidgeting.

“Harry?”

+++++++

_Gemma grinned toothily and ruffled Harry’s newly-chopped hair, “Look’s gorg, H. Mum’s gonna flip.”_

_“What the fuck, H? Why didn’t you tell me?” Gemma practically screeched, holding the broken pieces of an old vase in her hands._

_“H, you wanna help me with this?” Gemma popped a hip, waving a newly wet paintbrush in her direction._

_Gemma turned to her, the sun high in the sky as the meadow opened like a blossom around her, “H, isn’t it beautiful?”_

“Harry? Sugar, are you okay?”

Harry startles, looking up from the pattern on her leggings when she feels Louis’ eyes on her, and sees that Louis’ face is scrunched up in confusion. Harry blinks owlishly, leaning away from Louis and back onto the wall behind her bed. “Sorry, I—” she looks back up to see that Louis has turned her body towards her, and she watches Louis' soft blue eyes, full of compassion and worry, and can't help but blurt it out. “My sister used to call me that.”

Louis looks confused, but relieved. “Oh, ok. I’m sorry, I won’t call you that. Do you miss her a lot?” Harry can’t help but tear up, her cheeks heating up as she chokes a little on her next breath. “Yeah.” She says, voice breaking as she pulls her knees into her chest and wraps her hands around her shins, “I miss her a lot.” Louis puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes it gently.

“I can take you sometime to visit her sometime, if you want. How far away is home?”

Harry shrugs off Louis’ hand and scrapes a tear off her cheek, a bitter laugh on the tip of her tongue. “She died with my mum. Three years ago this May.” Louis makes a soft, empathetic noise. “I’m so sorry, Harry. I—” Harry looks up to see Louis looking, nervous? and is picking at her nails. “I know, how hard it can be. Losing your family. So if you—if you need someone to, someone who understands—I could, I would—” Harry lets go of her knees, sliding forward so that she and Louis are sat as mirror images of each other.

Louis’ sea-colored eyes are downcast and she’s chewing gently on the corner of her lip. Harry puts a hand under Louis’ chin, raising her face to be level with Harry’s own. Louis cheeks are flushed perfectly, the gold ring through her nose contrasts starkly against her tan skin, and her delicate eyebrows are arched gently above her eyes, which look uncertain and afraid; she’s heart-stoppingly beautiful. Harry swallows, her throat still a little sticky with tears as she sniffles. Louis opens her mouth to say something, her little pink tongue slipping out to ghost over her bottom lip, but before she can even take a breath Harry pushes her hand back off Louis’ chin and into her hair, curling it around the strands and pulling her forward to mash their mouths together.

The kiss is gentle at first, Louis mouth is stiff and her eyes are still open with surprise, but when Harry cups her cheek and opens her mouth to suck on Louis’ bottom lip, Harry feels a shift between them, and the kiss turns,

Electric.

All-consuming. _Scorching._ Louis hands are suddenly on Harry’s shoulders and pushing her back to lay on the bed, Louis’ body hovering over Harry, boxing her in by straddling her hips and licking into her mouth _exactly_ the way Harry likes it, and Harry’s hands slip out of Louis’ hair and trail down to grip at her neck, her back, her hips, her fucking _glorious_ arse, her hands fitting perfectly in all of Louis’ curves—like this isn’t their first kiss…like they’ve done this—

+++++++

—for the hundredth, thousandth, _millionth_ time when Louis pulls the elastic put of her Harry’s hair and buries her fingers in the mess of curls, gasping into Harry’s mouth when she feels Harry’s strong hand grip her arse through her leggings. She smells fucking _edible_. Like fruit; sweet, juicy, red, fruit. Strawberries. Raspberries. Cherries. Louis tugs a little on Harry’s curls, smiling into the kiss when she hears Harry’s answering moan and its, its, it’s _so much_ , and Louis can’t feel anything but Harry’s hands or taste anything Harry’s sugared breath or smell anything but Harry’s skin, ripe like fruit fresh from the fucking tree and _my God what did I ever do to deserve this, what did I ever do to get you, my girl, my love, my heart beating out of my chest, my god, I love you._

Their mouths move together for another moment but then Harry pulls back to breathe and Louis brain kicks back into gear, her arms going rigid in their positions. Harry presses open-mouthed kisses down Louis throat and feels every single muscle in her body tighten with _want_ and _need_ and _Jesus fucking Christ I’m not strong enough for this—_

“Lou, Lou, _baby_ , shirt? Baby can I take off your shirt?”

Louis looks back down at Harry, spread out beneath her, all flushed and pretty with her lips bitten-red and face looking so hot the green in her eyes can barely be seen around her blown-out pupils.

_My very own blue movie, aren’t you? Are you my blue movie? My blue, blue babydoll?_

Louis flinches like she’s been slapped and yanks herself away, falling off the bed and onto the floor. Harry jumps up too, startled, “Lou? Are you okay?”

“I, ugh. I gotta—um I gotta go, I’m sorry I just,” Louis grabs her bag and picks up her books, shoving them in and zipping it up in one motion as she backed away, not looking at Harry as she blindly feels for the door knob behind her. “Hey, hey. We can slow down, Lou. Don’t go, I—” Louis opens the door and practically falls out of it, sprinting down the hallway and out of the building. She doesn’t stop running til she gets to her building, swipes in, and walks upstairs as calmly as she can.

_How could you do this? You promised, you fucking promised and now it’s over. How could you be so fucking selfish Louis Tomlinson you’ve fucking ruined it she’s gonna know she’s gonna find out you promised and you broke that promise you’re so fucking selfish you fucking_

Louis gasps as the door swings shut behind her and she drops to her knees. The sound of her heart pounding is so hard it’s all she can hear, even though she has no idea how her heart can be in her chest when she left it with Harry, has always given it to Harry _every time_ and she can’t _do_ this anymore.

She doesn’t hear Zayn, as much as feel her wrap her arms around Louis, pulling her into her arms and up off of the floor. Louis just shakes silently for what feels like hours while Zayn strokes her hair and presses kiss after kiss into her temple. Later, when her breaths are slow and unlabored, Louis realizes that she and Z are lying in bed curled up together.

Zayn is stroking her hair and Louis still feels sick with self-loathing, her face tacky with snot and dried tears. “Why are you doing this to yourself, Lou? Just fucking tell her.” Louis shrugs off Zayn’s arms and gets out of bed. Louis strips off her clothes, changing into a sports bra, running shorts, and a hoodie. “I’m going for a run.”

Zayn huffs on the bed behind her, “You need to get the fuck _over_ yourself you fucking selfish prick. You love her and she loves you, even if she doesn’t know it yet. All you have to do is fucking _talk_ to her.”

“I _can’t_ , Zayn, I fucking _can’t_ , and stop acting like you know what this feels like because you fucking _don’t_.”

“What don’t I understand then, Lou? Explain it to me if I don’t understand why you won’t get your _head_ out of your _ass_ and tell the woman you’ve loved for your entire life that you want nothing more than to—”

“ _Because_ it’s not fucking enough! It’s never, ever enough and I’m so _tired,_ so tired of being _lonely_ when she isn’t back yet and then rushing everything so fast and having her, _feeling_ her, being with her, and then I watch her _die_. Again.” Louis says, voice breaking. “I can’t do it anymore. I said it was because she deserves to have a life, that, that she deserves to live, and—it is! She does! But I just…” she looks over at Zayn, barely able to see her with tears swimming in her eyes, “I can’t. I can’t anymore. It hurts too much.”

Zayn’s eyes are soft, and she opens her mouth to say something, but she’s cut off by an abrupt pounding at the door.

“Lou, please, I’m—I’m sorry, okay? That was stupid! I shouldn’t have done that. _Please_ , let me in. I just want to apologize.”

Louis turns her back on Zayn’s glare to walk over to the door. She peers out of the peephole to see Harry standing in front of the door, pulling at her own arm and chewing her lip nervously. Her mouth is still rosy-red and her cheeks are flushed, from the run over here or not Louis isn’t sure. Harry bangs on the door again, “Lou, I’m so sorry. Please just let me tell you I’m sorry.”

Louis turns back around to find Zayn gone, and feels tears prick her eyes. _Tell her and let her decide for herself you idiot,_ she hears Zayn’s voice in her head.

I can’t. She doesn’t have enough information to make the decision.

_Then tell her the information. Help her._

What if I don’t want to?

_You don’t have a fucking choice._

Louis looks back at the door, and bites her lip, tasting the blood that bubbles up at the skin. She reaches down and turns the doorknob.

++++++

Louis looks like a _mess_ when she opens the door; she’s half-dressed and her hair is scrunched oddly on one side, like she was lying down, and her flushed cheeks are caked with dry tears. Harry opens her mouth to apologize again, but Louis holds up a hand, cutting her off, and gestures her inside the room.

Harry walks in, pulling at the rings on her fingers and unable to look Louis in the eye, and waits as she hears the door swing shut. She turns back to Louis and finds her sitting on what must be her bed, which is surrounded by various articles of clothing, dance shoes, and black boots in varied states of use. She sits on the bed, looking at the floor, and pats the place beside her. Harry sits, hesitantly, trying to leave enough space between them so that Louis won’t feel crowded, but the older girl huffs and pulls Harry close, so that their legs are pressed up against each other.

Louis takes a deep breath, and slowly raises her eyes to meet Harry’s, “I didn’t want to do this, it wasn’t the plan, and I’m, I’m so fucking sorry for this because believe me I never—I haven’t ever…I only wanted what I thought was—” she sighs, but it sounds more like a sob when she looks away and presses the heels of her hands into her face.

Harry takes one of Louis’ icy hands, holding it gently in her own until it starts to warm up, then presses a kiss into the back of it. “I’m listening, Lou. I’m not angry and I’m not upset, just tell me what you want me to know.”

Louis laughs, a sad, wet sound like she can’t believe what she’s hearing, “ _God_ , sugar you never change. You really don’t.” she sits up and takes her hand out of Harry’s, “I lied to you, that first day.” she takes a deep breath, “You do know me. And I know you. I lied because I didn’t want you to get close to me and I didn’t want to be friends, it would be too hard on both of us. ”

Harry feels confused, _is this what she’s so upset about?_ _That she lied that one time? Did we have a one-night stand?_

Louis laughs, “No we didn’t have a one-night stand. I haven’t been in the UK in…” she trails off, “Twenty? Thirty years? The Cold War made me pretty sick of all of Europe for a time, I stayed mostly in South America.” Harry freezes, _Holy shit holy shit holy sh—_ “Yes, I can read your mind,” Louis says with a soft smile, “Typically I block your thoughts because I—” she looks sad again, “I prefer when you _share_ your thoughts with me, I don’t like breaking your trust.” She looks anxious now, “I’ll stop now, I don’t want you to think your mind isn’t private, because it is! And you deserve that privacy, especially from me…”

Harry blinks twice then opens her mouth to speak only to be cut off by Louis, “Yes, I know you’re clairvoyant. A pretty talented clairvoyant as well, considering you’ve had no training,” her smile is now proud and fond, “Although both Niall and Liam did help quite a bit,” she hesitantly raises a hand to brush hair out of Harry’s face, “I’m glad that you have them, that you made a home for yourself with them, it eases my heart.”

She clears her throat, “But now, onto the grand explanation. I am an immortal, Harry. Not a mythical being that doesn’t exist,” she hurries to say when it looks like Harry is about to interrupt, “just a normal human being that has lived one life cycle for several hundreds of years. I was a princess when they were burning witches at the stake, I lived in Italy at the height of the Renaissance, I lived in France through several different King Louis’ reigns, I embarked to America when the opportunity came and lived as a Puritan, I lived through every war, fought or helped in most of them, I fought for race equality, women’s suffrage, I fought against prohibition,” she winks, “and I fought for marriage equality. I have lived in every corner of the planet, and done everything a person could want to do.” She pauses, “I have lived the places I have lived, and done the things I have done for one reason, and one reason only.” Louis cups Harry’s face in her hands, and brings her close enough so that the only thing Harry can see are warm, bright blue eyes staring back into hers, “Because I love you with everything that I am, and will love you until the end of time.” She smiles, rubbing her thumb into Harry’s cheek so, so gently.

Harry sits still as a statue, entranced by the color and sincerity in Louis’ eyes, _there’s no fucking way this is real. I’m dreaming. I’m hallucinating. Nope. No. This is impossible, it can’t be—_

_But can’t it? Couldn’t it?_

Harry shakes her head, pulling away from Louis and standing up, “No…No I…you’re kidding.” She turns back to look at Louis, still sitting calmly on the bed with her hands in her lap, “Please, Jesus Christ tell me you’re taking the mickey...tell me you don’t really believe this?” she shakes her head, “Lou…I…its ridiculous! You can’t possibly believe that—you can’t expect _me_ to believe that you’ve lived in every century! It makes no sense, Louis, please just…” Louis’ eyes soften when they meet Harry’s, and she stands up and walks over to Harry, brushing a stray curl out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.

“Pull out your phone and type in Louise Tombleson. Spelt T-O-M-B-L-E-S-O-N.” Louis says softly, “Go on. See what comes up.” Harry reaches in her pocket without thinking and does so, while Louis keeps talking, “You can also try Louisa Tomlinson, Elouise Thomlesson or combinations of the three,” she shrugs indifferently, “I haven’t changed my name in several centuries; I used to have quite the flair for the dramatic when I was younger.” Harry combs through the first few articles, all about different historical figures with variations on the same name, ‘Louise Tomlinson’, until finally she’s brave enough to open the photo results, and there it is, clear as day.

Every single picture is a carbon-copy of the girl standing before her, silently playing with her hair.

They vary in hairstyle, clothing, and media type but they are all undeniably, unmistakably Louis. Same striking eyes, same delicate features, same heart-stopping smile. Harry swallows hard when she sees a particular black and white photo.

The photo features two girls in the middle of a small river, one of them, shirtless and wearing blue jeans, sitting on a bundle of sticks, and the other one standing in the water beneath wearing only a long sweater. The girls are looking into each other’s eyes, seemingly having just pulled away from a kiss. While the girl in the sweater is obviously Louis, Harry can tell by the shape of her body and the half-grin she wears on her face, but the other girl…the other girl is—

Harry drops the phone to the ground and steps away from Louis, her hands shaking as they reach up to brush her hair out of her eyes because—

 _What the fuck, what the fuck, what the—what the—_ fuck.

Because the picture is of Harry, with long curly hair that’s half in her face, topless, her dimple barely visible due to the graininess of the photo, and staring into Louis’ eyes like she’s the sun coming out between the clouds after a long, long rain.

The caption under the photo says _Young Girls Bathing in River, Bethel, NY. August 17, 1969._

Harry’s about a moment away from a full-fledged panic attack when she feels Louis arms wrap around her, gently pulling her close and _goddammit_ if it doesn’t feel good, feel right, feel _safe_ for the first time in such a long time. Harry sighs, relaxing backward into Louis’ chest, watching as one of Louis hands comes up to gently touch her forehead, “I know it’s a lot. It always is. I understand you need a few days…or…” she hesitates, “If you want me gone. If you don’t want anything to do with me or any of it, I would understand, and I would gladly stay away,” she reaches up a hand to brush her knuckles against Harry’s cheek and smiles softly, “I owe you much more than that for the past 700 years…” she hesitates, “Or, if you…if you would…” she clears her throat, seeming to not know what to say, “or I could stay.”

Harry is frozen still, her mind a mess of her jumbled thoughts, most of which are telling her to push Louis away, push her away and run for her life, but then that one, _tiny,_ grating _, screech_ is begging, pleading, _she’s mine. Mine. Louis has been, will always be, mine for all time._

Louis, sensing Harry’s panic, pulls the taller girl closer and leans up to press her lips to Harry’s ear, whispering passionately, “Harry Elizabeth Styles, I have loved you all my life. I loved you when I had to sneak into your castle’s chambers when your husband was out hunting in the English hills just so I could sleep next to you. I loved you when we would walk to Fire and Brimstone Baptist Services in Massachusetts and I couldn’t even risk holding your hand. I loved you when I pushed you up against the bathroom wall of the speakeasy a block off our Chicago apartment and kissed you for the first time in almost 100 years. I loved you when I watched you patch up U.S., British, German, and Soviet boys all crying for their mamas in the French trenches. I loved you when we made love in our tent in the grass of Bethel, New York to the dying sounds of guitars. I have loved you deeply, fiercely, passionately, and whole-heartedly in all your forms.” She pulls back, because Louis is crazy, she’s crazy and not herself and her eyes are locked with Harry’s own, and Harry sees the love there, the overwhelming _love and dedication to you, and only you for all the years to come, my love, my heart is yours and I—_

Harry stumbles back, away from Louis’ embrace, the palm of one of her hands pressed against her now aching head. She looks at Louis, who looks concerned and immediately reaches out to her until Harry flinches away. The older girl is hurt at first, her out-stretched hand quickly pulled back to her side, but then schools her expression to be calm, and takes a step away from Harry.

“You,” Harry swallows, “You were in my head. I block people’s thoughts because I don’t like to hear them because, it’s, it’s cruel, it’s invasive to—to use someone like that. It was the first thing I learned to control, without even trying, really. Because I didn’t, I don’t.” she looks down at her hands, they’re shaking, “I don’t want to be a freak, I don’t want to be a monster that uses people. But you, you just—” Harry can’t even look at her, she turns away. “You broke down my wall and forced your way in. You pushed that onto me. You just, _talked_ inside my head.” She raises her voice as she speaks, and turns back to look at Louis, who’s face is cowed and body curled in on itself, before turning away again, “And you’re telling me all these things, things that I’ve been seeing in my head for months, and they’re getting clearer and clearer in my head like you put together the pieces of the puzzle and I’m looking at you,” she feels a wetness in the corner of her mouth and suddenly realizes she’s crying, “and all the confusion, fear, fighting with my friends about whether or not it’s safe to be around you and all the time thinking I’m _insane_ for having visions of you—and me—together.” She shakes her head, tears still falling down her face, her hands still shaking at her sides. “And it was you. All of it was you. This whole time. You’ve been messing with me for months—” Louis’ hands grab her and turn her around to face her, and she no longer looks guilty, but surprised.

“You’ve been having visions of us? Together? When? What were they like?”

Harry yanks herself out of Louis’ hold and can’t help but snap at her, “You fucking know, you’re the one who’s been putting them there. Stop pretending like you don’t know what I’m talking about!”

“Harry, I _don’t_ know what you’re talking about. You have to tell me what’s happening right now so I can help.” Louis says in a soothing tone. “I only want to help, please tell me.”

Harry scoffs, “Why don’t you just look in my head and _take_ the answer. I know you aren’t against it.”

Louis huffs out a breath, “I’m not going to look inside your head. If you don’t want to tell me what the visions are like that’s fine. But bear in mind that I _have_ lived on this earth for several hundreds of years and have been clairvoyant for most of them, so I tend to have a bit more experience when it comes to things like this.”

“No.” Harry says, shaking her head, “No, no, no. I don’t know how you found out about—about me, but that doesn’t mean the rest of this is true, there’s no way this is true,” she breaks off, turning away from Louis and bracing her hands on the sides of her head, “you’re—you’re either lying, or joking, and either way that’s just, that’s _mean_ , because there’s no way that—that you and me—that we—that I,” she closes her eyes and wraps her arms around herself, fighting back more tears. She turns back around—

++++++++

—and the accusation in her eyes is downright—is purely, so incredibly—

 _Painful_.

And it’s as heartbreaking as it always is.

Because Louis has done this before, is the thing. Louis has done this dozens, maybe even a hundred times. She has held Harry’s hands and wiped Harry’s tears and let Harry leave her, hit her, yell at her and storm out while she cried and told herself that this would be the one, this one would be the Harry that hated her and left her to be alone and then every Harry after that would follow and then she would really be alone, cursed to walk the planet until—

Louis takes a deep breath.

She walks over the Harry and gently takes her hand. She cradles the long, slender fingers in both of her hands and traces the lines, counts the freckles, brings one up to her mouth and presses a kiss to the knuckle. Then she reaches under her shirt and pulls out the locket, undoing the chain and placing it in Harry’s hand.

Harry drops the locket like it burns her; Louis catches it before it falls.

“I’ve seen that before.” Harry says, backing away, “In—in my dreams. I’ve seen you wearing that locket.” Louis nods, then holds it out again as an offering. Harry hesitates, Louis sighs.

“I can’t explain all,” she gestures around herself, “this to you. I’ve tried before, and it only makes you angry or scared or worse. So someone—you actually—decided that the best person you could learn about the fine details of our relationship, is yourself.” Louis gestures to the locket, “Open it up and see if you don’t believe me. Take it.”

With seemingly even more trepidation than before, Harry reaches out and takes the locket, then opens it; Louis’ most prized possession, the only one she didn’t leave behind when she started over, the only one that mattered. Harry opens it and pulls out a small, yellowing, paper triangle and an even smaller paper square behind it. Harry picks the square first, unfolding it slowly and letting out a soft little gasp. Louis knows what she’s seeing; the first ever photograph of the two of them.

It had been Harry’s idea. She and Louis had been lounging in her front parlor when they had been talking about it; the heat was sweltering and Louis had been desperately trying to cool down with the new silk folding-fan she had gotten from the ladies’ shop the week before, and Harry had been warring internally with the boundaries of propriety in lieu of un-buttoning the top of her dress further. It was 1869, in New York, and they had been together for a little longer than two years.

_“It just makes me sad.” Harry had said, continuing an earlier conversation, “That I, in all our lives with one another, have never given you a gift.”_

_Louis smiles, slow and syrupy, and reaches out to hold Harry’s hand, “My love, I do not need gifts from you. The gifts of your love and presence in my home are more than plenty.” Harry smiles back, just as sickly sweet as Louis is herself, and kisses the hand that is wrapped around her own. Harry turns her eyes down to the fabric of the couch she’s laying on, smoothing the pattern. “Still…” she trails off, looking around the room as if that’s how she’ll find the words, “I wasted so much time, not believing you, afraid of what it all might mean…” she stood up and walked over to Louis, sitting on the floor closest to her face and cupping her cheeks in her hands, “I can scarcely comprehend how much pain I put you through.” Her tone is one of mourning and Louis cannot bear to hear it, so she clambers onto the floor in front of Harry, pressing their foreheads together._

_“My love, the fault lies with no one. You could not have known.” Louis says soothingly, “Do not worry on the thought another second, for any even the longest bout of pain dulls in the shadow of a moment of being in love with you.” Harry smiles a watery smile and they kiss, softly, passionately, until they can taste the sweat running down their faces. They both laugh._

_“Even so, I want to give you a gift, a special one.” Harry says, tucking a sweaty lock of hair back into the bun at the nape of Louis’ neck._

_“I will treasure anything in the world that you give me, my love. You know that.”_

Harry told her about the locket within the next few days, she had sent it away to be engraved. Louis had expressed wanting to have a photograph to put inside, so they had had the very one in Harry’s hands now commissioned. The note had been found later, on top of Harry’s writing desk, two weeks after the photo had been taken and three days after Harry’s funeral.

_Louis had been walking aimlessly around the house that night. Zayn had fallen asleep, exhausted with her dogged attempts at keeping Louis alive, seeing as the latter refused to eat or drink or even speak since the moment Harry had been placed in the dirt._

_She went to the library, because it had been Harry’s favorite room in Louis’ endlessly large manor house. Louis walked about the room, looking at all the books Harry would never finish…the couches she would never lay on…the curtains she would never open nor shut…the candles she would never again light to read after dark..._

_Louis picked the closest thing to her, a wooden box on the desk where Harry had written letters while Louis kissed her neck and tried to pull her away, towards their bedroom to sleep,_ I’ll be in for bed in a mere moment, my darling. Why do you rush? We have nothing but time, we have all the _—_

 _She hurls the box at a wall with all her strength with a wail and feels nothing when it shatters._ I want to die, _she thinks with all her might_ , I want to die, please Lord, God, let me die, finally please, I want off this cursed place I want **off,** _she drops to her knees on the floor and sobs. Then, when she cannot kneel anymore, she falls forward, her hands hitting shards of wood from the box, and then—something cool and hard in the mix of debris._

_Louis sits up, not bothering to wipe away the tears that fall down her face and picks up a large, silver locket, with a thorn-less rose pressed into the front. She holds it by the heavy chain, letting it spin around to reveal the engraving that Harry had asked for in perfect silver script: ‘Beautiful Dreamer, Queen of My Song, Beam on My Heart. Forever will I Love you, Forever I am Yours.’_

_Louis had **screamed** upon reading the inscription, cradling the locket to her chest and not moving until Zayn found her many hours later. _

Two notes and the photo had been inside, the one thick and folded into a triangle and the other only a few words on a ripped scrap of paper. “ _Give this to me to read, and I will come back to you. I love you.”_

Louis lost that note decades ago, after she had had the tail end of her beloved’s last message tattooed on her arm, like Harry had written it on her herself, so many years ago. The Harry before her gasps and Louis is pulled out of her reverie to see Harry has moved away from her to sit on her desk, reading the letter so quickly Louis has to wonder whether she’s even processing the words. When she’s finished she looks up a Louis, partially dazed, partially angry. She puts the letter, locket, and picture down on the desk before beginning to pace the length of the room. She stops, points at Louis and makes to say something, but then she turns back around, shuts her mouth and keeps pacing. She keeps it up for a few minutes and then she whirls back around, pointing her finger at Louis and saying “What I don’t get, is how you made it sound like me.” She points at the note on the desk, and lets out an incredulous laugh, “Because I _wrote_ that, that—that’s _my_ handwriting.” She laughs again, “Neater, maybe. A little more old fashioned language. But that,” she points to the letter, tears welling up in her eyes once more, “I _wrote_ that. And every word, every sentence,” she sniffles and looks away, “Is, is _angry_ , is absolutely _furious_ with me for not believing you.” She looks back to Louis, “Because I’m hurting you, aren’t I? Every time I look at you, touch you—I’m not her.” She points at the letter, “I’m never gonna be her. And I don’t think you realize that.”

Louis steps forward, wrapping her arms around Harry’s waist and pulling her close, their mouths a little more than inches apart. She’s right, in a way. The Harry that wrote that note is long dead, and has very little in common with the Harry in her arms, but that doesn’t make them opposites. “You’re right.” Louis says, looking up into Harry’s confused eyes, “You aren’t her, you’re different. But,” she pauses to lean up slowly for a kiss, giving Harry plenty of time to move away if she wants to, but instead their lips meet, softly and chastely, before Louis continues, “I’m different too. I’m not the same person I was in 1860, or in 1960, and I won’t be the same in 2060, if I live that long.” She smiles at Harry, using her thumbs to draw circles on Harry’s hips, “Whatever person I am right now is meant for you, the way that the person I was, was meant for her.” she sighs, “I don’t understand a good bit of this—of us—of how and why it works,” she shrugs still looking at Harry, “I just know it does. And I, I _tried_ to do things differently, to be different, and it still turned out like this. We still found each other.” Louis smiles, and pulls Harry in for another kiss. This one is longer, less passion and more devotion; a promise.

“I’m scared.” Harry says softly, “For a lot of reasons. But—for the moment at least—” she presses her forehead to Louis’ and takes a deep breath, “I believe you. I believe in this, us, whatever it—” she doesn’t get in another word because Louis tackles her, pushes her onto her messy bed and straddles her lap, kissing all over her face while Harry laughs and laughs and laughs.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in Louis’ bed, talking and kissing just feeling each other. Louis always forgets this, how it feels to have her again. It’s always so good, the beginning, the part where they learn about each other. Harry tells her the full story, everything that happened since she lost her mother and sister, and Louis tells her as much as she can about her life in this century, how she ended up at this school because she was tired of traipsing around North America for the past few decades. She tells her about the first time she saw Harry on campus all those months ago, how utterly infatuated and mesmerized she was from that first moment. They only talk about the good things, trying to put off the hard stuff as long as they can. Eventually they stop talking at all, preferring to lay in silence, kissing when they want to and drinking in each other’s presence. They’re so busy breathing in each other’s air, so lost in having this time together that Louis doesn’t even notice the time passing, and suddenly its night, and there’s a knock at the door.

Louis is braiding little pieces of Harry’s hair and Harry is idly running her fingers up and down Louis’ spine underneath her t-shirt when it sounds throughout the room. Harry looks up at Louis from where her head is pillowed on Louis’ chest, “Don’t answer it.”

Louis smiles, a soft, mushy smile, “I wouldn’t dare. Go to sleep, love.” Harry smiles back, just as mushy, and closes her eyes, tucking her face into Louis’ neck. Then the knock sounded again, more insistently. Louis sighs, “Can I answer it to tell them to go away?”

Harry grumbles for a moment, then shifts off of Louis and wraps herself around Louis’ pillow instead. “Hurry up.” Harry says grumpily as she buries her roses-and-cream cheek into the pillow. Louis backs away towards the door, unwilling to take her eyes off of Harry for even one second, and only turns when she opens the door to see a slightly annoyed-looking Perrie standing in the hall, tapping her foot with her arms crossed. 

“Shit, Pez!” Louis gasps as she answers the door, “I’m so sorry, I’m such an idiot. I totally forgot.”

“No shit, Lou, what the fuck?” Perrie says, pissed, “I was really counting on you for this part of the dance! What am I going to do in class tomorrow? Madame is going to have _both_ of our asses because I told her you were helping me.” Louis closes her eyes and runs a hand through her hair, pushing it back and out of her eyes.

“Okay, well…” she trails off turning back to look at Harry who is sitting up in her bed, looking…alarmed? “I’m kind of busy…at the moment, Pez, is there any way we could do it later? Tomorrow, before class maybe?”

Louis turns back to Perrie, whose tone has jarringly shifted from annoyed to sunshine-y, “Busy? You’re too busy, for _me_? Louise Tomlinson I am appalled!” Louis forces a laugh, and Perrie goes on, “Yeah, love, before class sounds good. Maybe around 9? Give you enough time to finish whatever _business_ you have in your room right now?” she smirks, and before Louis can even blink, she turns and is flouncing off down the hallway, down the stairs, and out of the building. 

Louis shuts the door and turns around to face Harry, who is sitting still as a statue on the bed with tears running down her face. Louis sprints over to the bed and cups Harry’s wet cheeks in her hands, “My love, my love, what’s wrong?”

Harry opens her mouth to speak but all that comes out—

++++++++

—is a choked, half-sounding sob. Harry licks her lips and tries again to speak and can’t, staring into Louis’ big, blue, gentle eyes so full of concern and fear and love. She finds herself careening forward and immediately buries her face into Louis’ neck and lets out soft, keening sobs into her neck while Louis, runs her fingers through Harrys’ hair and makes soothing noises into Harry’s ear.

She was here. The woman. The woman that killed her. Harry shudders and Louis holds her tighter.

She could see the dream happen when the woman spoke, could hear her bright laugh contrasting with the kick to Harry’s sternum that sent her sprawling. The breath in Harry’s chest catches and she feels Louis pull back to look at her, a hand coming up under her chin so their eyes meet. “Harry.” Louis says, voice kind but firm, “Take a deep breath, and calm down; you’re going to make yourself ill.” So Harry does, breathe in one wobbly breath after the other, until she’s calm enough to stop crying. When she’s mostly still, Louis leans her forehead against Harry’s matching their breathing.

“What happened?” Louis says softly, her mouth so close to Harry’s that she can feel Louis’ breath, “You were fine, love, what happened?” she leans back to look Harry in the eye, “Is it me? Is this…too much?” she tries to step out of Harry’s reach completely, but Harry grabs her at the waist and brings her close again.

“That woman, the woman that was—the woman that you were talking to, I know her.” Harry says shakily.

Louis looks confused, and reaches a hand up to tuck a lock of hair behind Harry’s ear, “You know Perrie?” Harry nods, “And that’s what upset you so badly that you had a panic attack?”

Harry shakes her head and takes a deep breath, “Remember, earlier, when I told you about the—about the dreams, the nightmares, I have?” Louis’ eyebrows pull together in concern as she asks, “The dreams about me, they’re nightmares?”

“No!” Harry practically shouts, pushing her hair out of her face, “Most of them are…well…” she blushes at the memories before continuing, “There’s only one, that’s a nightmare. And she…that woman. She killed me.” Harry’s eyes well up again when Louis’ jaw goes slack in shock at her words. “I remember it. I was leaving your, your house, it was this massive white house with red shutters and yell—”

“Yellow flowers planted out front. They were daffodils.” Louis says softly, “I ripped them up after—after. Ripped that whole house apart. I built it for you, and when you were gone,” her voice breaks on the word, “I couldn’t even sell it, so I just abandoned it,” she clears her throat, “It’s still there; they painted the shutters red and I…I think the daffodils still come up. It’s a historical site now.” Her eyes are a thousand miles away, even standing mere inches from Harry, with one hand in Harry’s hair and one on Harry’s waist. She looks back up, and she’s right back with Harry, “But you were telling me about your dream, you left my house, and then?”

So Harry tells her about the dream, every terrifying and painful detail, and Louis doesn’t pull away or get upset, only is still and stoic and silent while she waits patiently for Harry to stumble through it. Instead of focusing on the dream, which is on the verge of making Harry ill, she focuses on Louis’ face as she talks, the cut of her jaw and her sharp cheekbones, the even, smoothed tan of her skin. Her eyes are darker at night, like the ocean without the sun shining through it. Her lips are fuller than they look from farther away, with a sweet little cupid’s bow that blurs the line between tan skin and the soft rose petals of Louis’ lips. She thinks back to earlier, when they lay in bed across from each other and Harry got to drink in her gorgeous face in real time, in this century, and take as long as she liked. The soft huff of a laugh Louis would make whenever Harry told her a joke, the way she rolled her eyes that only made her look more fond and in love with Harry, the warmth seeping under Harry’s fingertips as she touched Louis over and over and reveled in the blissful silence, stillness, and comfort. The way that Harry knew, deep down in her soul, that she would die before she gave this up. The voice in her head whispering when she saw the woman from her nightmare standing in Louis’ doorway, _you just might_. Harry shudders, and finally realizes she’s finished, and has just been staring at Louis for at least a few minutes. 

Louis doesn’t even seem to have noticed. She looks terrified, her hands braced behind her head and eyes wide with panic. She scrapes a hand down her face, her voice shaking, “I didn’t even know Perrie was an immortal.” She turns around and paces across the floor of the dorm for a few minutes then she sucks in a deep breath, steadying herself. Then she turns back to Harry, eyes soft and walks back over to her and pulling her close. The instant their skin touches Harry can feel her anxiety slipping away. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Louis whispers fiercely in her ear, “I swear it, no unwanted hand shall touch you, my love. By my life, I will keep you safe.” Louis leans back to look Harry in the eye, and Harry can feel some of the calm, soft waves of reassurance washing over her from where she and Louis are touching. Harry sighs, almost all of her anxiety gone, and leans her face toward Louis’ to touch their foreheads together. They hold that pose for a few moments until Louis leans back, kisses Harry on the cheek, then turns around to face her desk, picking through the pockets of the jacket hanging on the back of the chair. She seems to come up with nothing so she swears, then trudges through the mess on the floor to reach in the pockets of every jacket, coat, and pair of pants on the floor. “I’m gonna call Z, get her over here and ask her more about Perrie; she knows her better than I do. You should probably call Liam and Niall,” she looks up at Harry then, hands still swiping through piles of filthy laundry, “I want them in on every conversation we have, every plan that we make.” She finally finds her phone and makes a small triumphant noise as she unlocks it and dials what must be Zayn’s number before putting the phone to her ear.

Harry feels a spark of fear in her gut, a low and twisting dirty blue that blossoms out of her belly and rises up to her throat, choking her. She can’t bring Niall and Liam into this, this thing between Louis and her and Perrie and Zayn. Their lives, although nowhere near normal, are complicated enough already between balancing school and their powers and their shared grief, both Niall with losing her sister and Liam with losing her dad; it was what drew Harry to them in the beginning, when she was so empty and broken. How can she look both of them in the eye and tell them she’s being hunted by someone, that Louis is immortal and she had a never-ending circle of life or whatever and risk their lives, the lives of two of the most important people in the world to her, the only people, before Louis, she considered family.

Louis walks back over to Harry and pulls her close, tucking Harry’s face into her shoulder and pressing a kiss to the crown of her hair. “We’re going to figure this out, I promise.” Then, “Zayn!” she answers the phone, one hand gently combing through Harry’s curls, “I need you to come home, now. No. It’s too much for the phone I need you—yes. Yes, we did,” Harry can hear the slight edge of exasperation in her voice, “yes, yes, yes blah, blah, blah thank you, now can you come home? Yeah. Okay. See you then, love. Bye.” She ends the call and tosses the phone on the bed behind her before she completely wraps her arms around Harry, holding her close again. Harry sighs into Louis’ neck and Louis kisses the top of her head again. Harry leans back so she’s standing straight, but still pressed snugly against Louis’ body. She sniffles a little, and Louis coos softly, brushing flyaway curls out of Harry’s face and tucking them behind her ears.

“You should call Niall and Liam,” Louis says gently, rubbing a thumb across Harry’s cheekbone.

Harry opens her mouth to say something, then hesitates. Her normal instincts are to hide, honed from years with no parents around and, really no one to take care of her. The urge to keep her feelings quiet, to hide her fear, almost overwhelms her. Then the small niggling voice in the back of her head whispers _you might as well tell her, seeing as she can take the whatever she wants from your head anyway_. Harry shakes her head and blows sharply out her nose, remembering the voice from the locket-letter, the angry voice, the words repeated over and over, _you are holding the heart of my soulmate, my twin flame, the balanced half of me, in your hands and you are crushing it. Everything you hide, every time you rationalize, every act of facetiousness, every time you push her away, you wound her. And I despise you for that. If hatred, disgust, and disdain are rivers, than what I feel for you is the ocean from which they flow._

“I’m scared.” She says in a small voice, not looking at Louis, “Ni, and Li, they…they aren’t on an endless life-circle like I am or unable to die like you. They’re human, they’re—they’re almost normal. I don’t want to get them into something that could get them hurt.”

Louis tips her chin up gently, her deep blue eyes filled with understanding and kindness. “I wasn’t suggesting that they put themselves in any sort of position that could ever get either of them hurt, I just thought that you wouldn’t want to lie to them.” She hesitates before continuing, “Of course whatever you want to tell them is up to you. Protection from Zayn and myself is guaranteed no matter what.” She brushes a hand across Harry’s cheek, “When I said I would protect you; that extends to your family. I know how important Liam and Niall are to you, and that makes them important to me.” Her gaze is steady and intense as she looks into Harry’s eyes, “Okay?”

Harry nods, but she still feels a wisp of muddy blue weaving around in her chest. Louis sighs, because she must see it to, but before she can remark on it, the door handle behind them clicks and opens to reveal a worried-looking Zayn, who definitely is skipping class from the way she has a canvas and pack of pencils tucked under her arm. She tosses her equipment on her bed as she lets the door swing shut behind her.

Harry once again, thinks about the locket-letter, the section that was dedicated to, _my dearest and nearest, Zayn._ The jealously that Harry felt, seemed so insignificant in the shadow of everything that Zayn has done, for her and for Louis. Locket-letter said it best; _she is there when you—we—are not. She has been there for every moment of pain, despair, fear, and joy between us and Louis. Without her, we would not exist. Zayn is the balance and the catalyst, and she is your best friend, second only to Louis herself. You, like me, should count yourself blessed that she takes care of the woman we love when we rip her apart and leave her alone and bereft._

Louis steps away from Harry to pull Zayn into a hug, holding her close for a moment. Louis presses her mouth to Zayn’s ear for less than a second, and if Harry wasn’t feeling a little insecure and unfocused she could swear she’s saying ‘I’m sorry’. Louis leans back and claps Zayn on the shoulder, steering her forward, back towards Harry. “Harry, my love,” Louis says softly, “I want to officially introduce you to Zayn, my best friend through the centuries, and after you, the only person I would trust with my life.”

Zayn’s eyes are gentle and sincere as she says, “I’m so glad you’re back, it’s…been a very long time, but you and I always end up be—” Harry surges forward without hesitation, wrapping her arms around Zayn’s narrow frame and holding her tightly. “Thank you.” She whispers fiercely. “Thank you for—for everything. For Louis. Thank you.”

Zayn returns the hug with fervor. “Anything. Anything for her.”

Harry nods into Zayn’s shoulder and steps back, smiling at her. She feels Louis coming up behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “So,” Zayn says, slipping a cigarette out of the pack in her pocket and lighting it as she walks over to the window to blow smoke out into the night air. “Tell me what’s going on.”

++++++++

Later, when Zayn is asleep, exhausted after a night of planning and going over possible motives that Perrie would have for hunting Harry. Louis has Harry in her bed, in her arms, not quite asleep but not quite awake and absolutely perfect as she breathes small even breaths into the space before her.

Louis buries her nose back into the back of Harry’s curls, tightening the hold around Harry’s middle as she kisses the nape of Harry’s neck. Harry sighs and curls her body up smaller, pressing her back more firmly against Louis’ front. Louis sighs in reply and murmurs softly into Harry’s ear, “What is it, my love? What question is so urgent that you can’t sleep?”

Harry makes a little noise and pushes at Louis’ hands, not removing the but pulling them away a little bit so she has space to turn around to face Louis, still wrapped up in the circle of her arms. “When did you become an immortal?”

Louis sighs softly for a moment, and ponders where to begin. “I was 20,” she starts, “and a boy that lived in my village approached me with a chance at immortal life. I was young, and a fool, and I knew that if I continued to live in my village I would die, and die young at that.” She purses her lips, “My father did, and my mum was set to as well, she never really recovered after she had my youngest siblings.” She smiles, a little bitterly, remembering the hazy memories of a woman with soft hands and warm hugs and the same eyes as Louis herself, “I thought I was too good for the life of a peasant farmer’s wife; the life of my mother.” She swallows, “So I trusted Damen and drank the elixir without thinking.” Her cheeks burn a little bit as she avoids Harry’s gaze, voice filled with shame, “I left home two days later and never saw any of my family again.”

Harry is quiet for a moment, her lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed in thought, then she reaches a hand up to brush across Louis’ cheek. “What was she like?”

“Beautiful.” Louis says reverently, “Strong. She bore the weight of motherhood and being head of house and a farm matron all at once. I never felt alone, or unloved when I was with her and I know my siblings felt just the same.” Louis starts getting choked up, “Leaving her is one of my greatest regrets.” Harry’s eyes soften at that last, and she twines her arms around Louis, letting Louis nuzzle her face against Harry’s chest, sniffling softly.

“Where did you go after that?” Harry asks, gently pulling her fingers through Louis’ messy hair.

Louis shrugs, “I honestly don’t remember most of it, it was a very long time ago. The times I remember best,” she smiles, and presses a kiss to Harry’s throat, “Are my times with you.” She can feel Harry smiling above her, the same hand still slowly scratching her scalp.

“I know you talked about them a little,” Harry says softly, shyly, “But…what was I, were we, like?”

Louis nuzzles her cheek against Harry’s throat, “Which time? There were many. So many times that I was blessed enough to call you mine.” She feels Harry squirm a little, then pulls her arm around Louis tighter.

“Tell me about the one you loved the most.”

Louis considers for a moment, then starts, “I was walking up the street after I had left the life-science building. I was tired, and hungry, and looking forward to having a smoke.” she pauses, “Then out of the corner of my eye, I spied the most beautiful aura I’ve ever seen. Gold and lavender, swirling and graceful, and I knew it was you. I turned away, and pretended I didn’t see you, all the while I tried to look for something reflective so I could see you again, just one glance.” She smiles, “You were wearing a blue and white dress, it was long and gauzy and you looked like a Greek princess and I—”

Harry huffs, annoyed, “I meant one from the _past_.”

“That is the past; it’s been some time since that day.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

Louis chuckles, pressing another kiss to Harry’s throat, “I told you the truth. You asked which one I loved the most, and I answered.” She curled closer into Harry’s warmth, “I love you the most.”

After that Harry is quiet, and sooner than they think, they’re both asleep.

++++++++++

Louis sneaks out while Harry and Zayn are still asleep, tip-toeing over to her dance bag and grabbing it as she goes, gently shutting the door behind her. She checks her phone, scrolling through the messages she has from Perrie, still not fully believing everything she knows to be true despite the overwhelming amount of evidence and words from the two people she trusts more than anyone else in the world.

She walks to the Fine Arts building, trying to act as calmly as she can so as not to alert Perrie or anyone that might be watching; campus is quiet but Louis is still on guard. She sees the building entrance, a familiar blonde figure standing next to it, and takes a deep breath in through her mouth, _showtime_.

“Pez!” She calls brightly, “Good to see you, love, hope I haven’t kept you waiting long?”

Perrie turns at the sound of her voice and smiles, and now only that Louis knows who this woman is can she see the tight coldness in her face, the way her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, “Not at all my dear! Drove over and only got out to wait when I saw you coming up the hill.” She nods to the door behind her, “Shall we?”

“After you,” Louis says with a wink, leaning around Perrie to hold the door open for her. They walk down the steps in what should be a calm silence, but what feels more to Louis like the moment before a gun goes off; she keeps waiting for the hammer to fall.

Perrie heads to their normal rehearsal space for classes, walking up to the door and opening it with ease, despite the fact that at this time of day it should be locked. The blonde tosses her bag into the corner of the room and Louis copies her, slipping out of her sneakers and kicking them in the same direction. Louis gets down on the ground cautiously, stretching her feet and legs out across the floor while keeping an eye on Perrie in the mirror behind her as the blonde fiddles with the studio’s stereo.

“So, Lou,” Perrie says in a voice that is trying far too hard to be calm, “Who was that bird you had in your room?”

Louis feels her hackles rise, but controls her face just in time and leans up to stretch her knee behind her, “Hmm?” she asks, voice strained from the stretch, “What bird?”

“The pretty little brunette.” Perrie says, impatience creeping on the edges of her tone as she finishes priming the music and sits down to begin her own stretches, “the one I saw you walking with in the U yesterday.”

“I’m confused,” Louis says slowly, “Which girl do you mean? The one in my room or the one at the union?” She can feel the charge of Perrie’s aura in the room, the waves of muddied-blood rolling off her like waves. The blonde’s head whips in her direction as Louis sits up to look at her, and for a split second pure fury washes over her face, turning her sweet features into a twisted, monstrous-looking creature, before she schools herself to mild irritation, and then sheepish curiosity.

“Sorry, I thought they were the same girl, are they two different ones?” Perrie asks, twirling a piece of hair around her finger.

“Honestly, Pez, I don’t remember,” she laughs, as if this is all normal, as if she’s not tenser than she’s ever been in her life, “Does it even matter?”

“Of course it matters!” Perrie barks, losing her cool again and jumping to her feet, “And you know _exactly_ why it matters, Louis, or should I call you Louisa? Maybe Louise?” her face tightens back into its cruel mask, “I know who you are, and I know you know who I am, and I’m gonna ask you one more time, _what is the name of the bitch you had in your room yesterday_.”

Louis rises to her feet slowly, hands out, “I don’t know who or what you’re talking about, but my name is Louis, just Louis, and the only girl I had in my room yesterday was Zayn, my roommate. Is that who you’re talking about maybe?”

“ _Stop_ fucking _lying_!” Perrie screams, her breaths coming out in ragged gasps as the room around them starts to shake, “I _know_ it was Harry! I _know_ she’s alive and I _know_ you told her who she is.” The room stills as Perrie smiles, saccharine and biting, “But that won’t be for long, don’t worry, how long does she usually last after you tell her? A few years, sometimes no more than few months, right?” her smile twists, edging on becoming a grimace, “Last time it was even _less_ than that, wasn’t it? Only a measly day, if I recall correctly. How long ago was that? Ten years? Twenty? Is that why you hid from her, hid from your fate? Did you _really_ think that would work?” Louis feels her face pale, and Perrie’s smile grows even more manic, “Oh you did, poor love. You should know better by now; self-control never has been your most impressive attribute.” She laughs, eyes wild, “But it doesn’t matter. I’m _ready_ now. I’ll set things moving again in no time!” her voice grows quiet and spiteful, “She’ll be in hell with all her predecessors soon enough.”

Louis can’t take it anymore, she launches herself at Perrie with a yell, kicking her in the stomach so hard that the blonde flies back and hits the mirror behind her with a sickening crunch. Louis doesn’t wait for her to recover before she grabs the other girl by the collar and throws her to the other side of the room, Perrie hitting the metal door with a bang and dropping to her knees, coughing up blood as she tries to crawl away from Louis, who advances on her again.

“You stole the love of my life from me.” Louis spits, kicking at Perrie’s hands so that she falls on the floor face first, “You’re a _murderer_. A cruel, empty being that has tormented those I love for _far_ too long. And from now on you will stay _away_ from me, away from my family.” The girl keeps crawling away, toward the back corner of the room, “But before I even _think_ about letting you go, I _have_ to understand _why_. Why would you do this? What reason do you have to hurt Harry? What has she ever done to you?” Louis questions, not paying attention to her target, who has reached her bag, thrown carelessly on the ground less than ten minutes before. Before Louis can process what is happening, Perrie reaches into the side pocket and pulls out a bottle of a sparkling red liquid, _elixir_.

The girl quickly takes a swig and smiles, the blood in her teeth making the sight more grisly than before, “Why don’t you ask Zayn, I’m sure she can fill you in.” then, before Louis can even open her mouth, she’s gone, leaving nothing but the loudest silence Louis has ever heard in her place.

++++++++

“What did she mean, Z? What have you hid from me?”

Harry leans back in Louis’ bed, biting her nails as she watches the scene before her unfold. Louis had returned from the dance studio a mere few hours before looking battered and bloody, but the amount of pain on her face now as she challenges a cowering Zayn makes it seem as though Perrie left nothing but a scratch in comparison. Zayn looks close to tears, her jaw tight and fists clenched at her sides, still unable to lift her eyes to Louis’ face as she says “I have hid nothing from you, you are my dearest friend and the only family I have ever known. What reason would I have to lie? I confessed that I was Perrie’s maker, but I—”

“But you never confessed _why_ ,” Louis cut in, the hurt in her eyes warring with the acid in her tone of voice, “You made a new immortal and kept it a secret from me. Then this immortal makes it her life’s purpose to _viciously murder_ the only person I have ever loved—”

“ _Ha_!” Zayn shouts her cowed countenance replaced with a fury to rival Louis’ own, “The _only—_ the only person you ever loved? The _only one_ , Lou? You loved _me_. You had _me_. You and I—” her voice cracks and Harry sees the barest gleam of tears in her eyes before she turns away from Louis, who stands frozen, stiller than a statue. Zayn continues, her voice quiet and controlled “I never held it against either of you. Not once. I saw the way you looked at each other and I knew that—” she breaks off to take a deep breath, “I knew you weren’t mine, had never been and never would be mine. You were meant for _her_ , and I,” she turns back to Louis her voice pleading and eyes filled with tears, “I let go. I let go of all of it; of you. And I was so.” She shuts her eyes, “I was so empty, and I wanted, no I _needed_ , something to fill the space I had kept for you.” Her voice colors with shame, “So I went out, found Perrie, and turned her before I could think about it. You were preparing the castle estate for Harry, planning to sneak her away from her husband and you weren’t paying attention to anything that wasn’t her, so I left. Took Perrie across the ocean and tried to forget. We fought. All the time.” she smiles bitterly, “I missed you more than I ever missed anything and she never let go of that. She and I grew to hate each other and I…I needed you.” Her eyes grew mournful “I was working up the courage to tell Perrie I was leaving when I—” she glances over in Harry’s direction, “When I heard about what happened. I flew from the house and never looked back. I never even thought about Perrie again until—”

“Until Versailles.” Louis whispers, “She would wait. She would wait until I had Harry and I would abandon you and then she—” Louis scraped a hand across her face, her shoulders shuddering with shame, “Oh, Z. I’m so _sorry_.”

Harry watches as Zayn moves forward, removing the hand from Louis’ face and tipping up her chin so that they can look each other in the eye, “Why are you sorry? For finding your soulmate? For not loving me back?” her smile is heartbreaking as tears drip down her cheeks, “Neither of these things are offences worthy of apology. I knew you weren’t mine. I just loved you so much that I lied to myself. I was cruel, and selfish,” at this she turns back to Louis’ bed to look at Harry, extending out a hand which Harry hurries to stand up and take, “to both of you. I let go of those feelings for her a long time ago,” she says to Harry, “but I still hope you can forgive me.”

Harry wipes away tears of her own and wraps her arms around Zayn in a hug, startling her. “There is nothing to forgive,” she whispers. Harry tucks herself in close to Zayn and feels when Louis also wraps her arms around them both. They stand like that for a while, sniffling and clinging to each other until a knock on the door startles them all apart. Louis and Zayn give each other a worried look, and then firmly push Harry behind them, out of harm’s reach. Louis slowly walks over to the door and opens it to reveal—

“Hey!! This looks like a fun party, can we come in? I was bored of listening through the door, and I—” Liam reaches forward from behind Niall to cover her still chattering mouth with her big, tan hand. “Niall, mate, read the room for once in your life, please.” 

Harry lets out a huff of a laugh and pushes past Louis and Zayn to crush both Liam and Niall against her in a hug. She pulls back to look at them both “You have no idea how happy I am to see you two.” she says, squeezing both of their shoulders with a smile that nearly splits her face.

“We figured you’d say something like that.” Liam grins at Harry, but her eyes keep darting behind to look at Zayn and Louis. _Are you going to introduce us or—_

Harry rolls her eyes, “I was getting to it. It’s not my fault you two always feel the need to make a grand entrance.”

Niall cackles, then budges between everyone to wrap a surprised Louis up in a hug. Niall pulls back from the hug, smile bright and infectious, chasing the last bits of tension from the room. “Good to see you again, Lou.” 

Louis returns the smile, clapping Niall on the shoulder, “Good to see you too, Ni. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, but then your psycho friend decided to almost-kill my best friend and well, we can’t let that stand now can we!” Niall grins again at the surprise on Zayn and Louis’ faces, “You really should think about not shouting where nosy people can hear. I know emotions were running high and all, but just for future reference, the whisper tone is the best when exchanging secrets.”

Louis bursts out laughing, eyes still a little raw from tears, and the mood in the room is considerably lifted. Harry looks around, at these four people, each so different in looks and personality and history, but all brought together one commonality; their love for one another. Louis reaches out for Harry’s hand even as she continues to talk to Niall and Liam, and Harry’s heart warms to feel their skin touch; an anchor of protection and silence surrounded by so much uncertainty and fear.

The five girls move further into the room, all melting into different articles of furniture to convalesce as plans begin to take form. Harry and Louis melt back onto her bed, twining around each other like vines, while Zayn and Liam take side-by-side slouched positions on the opposite bed, and Niall takes a starfish position on the floor.

“So.” Says Niall, pulling a tiny rubber ball from her pocket, throwing it at the ceiling, and then catching it as it falls, “Plan. We’ve got to make one, yeah?”

Harry and Louis exchange a brief glance, then Harry grimaces, “I’m not sure.”

Zayn, across the room, looks confused, “In what way? Perrie threatened you didn’t she?” She looks at Louis, who nods, “And we know that those threats aren’t empty. She’s been doing this for centuries.”

“But,” Liam cuts in, “She knows she’s exposed. Four powerful clairvoyants know about her, and three of them can guard her around the clock if need be. If I were her, I’d be worried.”

“You forget.” Zayn says softly, “I’ve…known Perrie a long time.” She pauses, “She’s trained in the old ways, like me and Lou. She was humiliated and she won’t let this go.”

Niall snorts, “Yeah, she was trained in the old ways _by you_. You don’t think she would use that stuff, the same stuff you taught her against you. Kind of a giveaway isn’t it?”

Louis and Zayn both shake their heads at the same time, but its Louis who speaks, “Magic doesn’t work like that. Especially old magic. It takes the shape of its wielder.”

“Meaning that,” Harry says quietly, “No matter what you taught her then, her magic could be totally different and…even more powerful now?”

Louis clears her throat, tightening her arms around Harry as she does, and simply nods. The room goes silent, all five women trying to stomach different versions of the same fear and doubt, until Niall’s voice breaks through the miasma, “So, since we can’t plan for the giant Perrie-shaped ballistic missile pointed at us, should we just go get dinner instead?”

Zayn snorts out a laugh, and Louis and Harry are fighting back matching smiles, but Liam shakes her head trying (and failing) to keep a disapproving face, “Do you _ever_ think about anything but food?”

Niall shrugs, to the mirth of her audience, “I’m the only normal one in the group, I have to remind you lot of your mortality every once in a while.” She jumps to her feet, “So, who’s gonna feed me.”

Liam rolls her eyes, but stands, and then reaches her hand back to Zayn to help her to her feet. Zayn takes the hand, cheeks flushing a little, and slides to her feet as well. The three girls carry on, everyone shoving and messing about as they file out the door, leaving Harry and Louis still sitting, tangled up.

Harry turns her head up to look at Louis from where she’s slouched, and finds that Louis already is looking right back at her. Their eyes meet, and they share gentle smiles. Louis leans down to press her lips to Harry’s forehead, then presses her own against Harry’s, eyes closed.

Harry breathes her in, the smell of cigarettes and vanilla and warmth, and lets her body relax.

“Don’t worry, sugar.” Louis murmurs, “I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not ever.”

Harry leans back to look at Louis, running a hand through her messy fringe to soothe her, “As long as we’re together, I’ll never be worried.”

She leans in, slow, and they meet in the middle, all soft open mouths and tongues, until Louis cuts it short, her face serious. “I mean it, my love,” she says, determination and confidence in every word, “I _will_ keep you safe. You, and those you love, I promise.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say, thumbing gently over Louis cheek to cup her face, until she feels the words rise up in her throat of their own accord, “I believe you.” She says, “I trust you, you need not make promises to me.” She leans in and picks up the locket around Louis’ neck and presses a kiss to it because it feels natural to do so. She continues, “I know you. Your every word to me is a promise, always.”

Louis’ smile beams even as her eyes, locked on Harry’s face, fill slowly with tears, “There you are.” She murmurs, brushing a hand down her cheek. Harry leans in to hug her when Louis pulls her in, and buries her face in the crook of Louis’ shoulder, heart racing, _why had she said that? Why had she kissed the locket? What did it mean?_

The stillness in the room is broken, a few moments or maybe a few hours later, when Niall calls out from the hallway, “Does that mean you two are done? C’mon mates, m’fuckin’ starving.”

Louis barks a laugh, and when Harry pulls out of their embrace she’s smiling, and replies, “We’ll be right there.”

++++++++++

The next two weeks that pass are the best of Harry’s life.

She never realized how much of her life, although well-rounded by her school commitments and her two best friends, was missing something. Missing Louis.

It feels so silly to think of it now, everything before Louis, as she walks hand-in-hand with the woman herself. Louis is telling her about practice for her dance intensive, the midterm one, and how she feels confident in everything but the song, and would Harry mind watching it, and seeing if she knows better music than what she chose?

Harry nods, but really she’s just watching the way that the sun hits Louis’ hair, and dances across her skin like the light just loves to touch her, and Harry can enjoy every minute, be present and centered and _here_ because of their connected hands and the blissful cosmic silence that contact provides. That’s another big part of Harry’s growing contentment, psychic ( _clairvoyant, darling. I’m not looking into a crystal ball for a pence a pop, and telling you that you’ll meet a tall handsome stranger, am I?)_ lessons with Louis. She teaches her control, and discipline, and breathing techniques to shield her from outside forces, and when Harry eventually gets bored of all that they just end up making out.

Harry worries, (quietly, in a back corner of her mind that she hopes to _God_ Louis can’t see) about doing the right thing, moving the right way, the ebb and flow between them. She’s not a bloody virgin or anything, but relationships are still new, especially one as important and life-changing as hers and Louis’. The last one she was in when she was in secondary school, before the fire, before Gems and Mum, before all of it. She’s had a few sporadic one-night-stands ranging in different levels of success, but far more that ended up with Harry barely being able to touch or feel the person she was with and enjoy it because of fear of what she would see or pain at what she had already seen.

She knows that Louis would never judge her, or hurt her, a blind person could see how much Louis loves and wants to be with her. But. There has been a whole score of other Harry’s, all of them graced with splendor and beauty and perfect, non-frizzy hair. (Harry has seen the pictures during an afternoon gander with Louis. Most of them looked like stuffy snotty toerags, but Louis assures her, her voice painted with reverence, that _that was just the style of painting or photography at the time, each and every incarnation of you was the epitome of kindness, beauty, and joy._ So. Not exactly a boost for the _current_ Harry’s ego.) All these other women that Louis has loved, been committed to, slept next to every night. She has hundreds of years of experience versus Harry’s measly 21 years on earth.

She thinks she has the right to be a little insecure.

Then she sees the way Louis looks at her, with bright and adoring eyes, soft smiles and wide laughing grins but most of all with love, love, love. That kind of love that rockets Harry back to the seventh grade when she would write sappy, long-winded poetry about the exact hair colour of a girl who winked at her once in a cafe (the poem was called _cornsilk sunshine dewed daisy_ and it was, _not_ good.) She’d write better poetry for Louis. Rhyming couplets about the length and delicacy of her eyelashes; haikus about the way she walks, stride confident as she runs her fingers through her hair to fix her feathered fringe; psalms about the curve of her waist where it meets her hip; sonnets about her pretty, pretty, pretty pink lips when they’re sucking on a straw, or a cigarette, or Harry’s neck—

—“Sugar? Harry, are you alright?”

Harry looks at Louis, startled out of her thoughts, and squeezes Louis’ hand twice, “Yeah, love. Sorry, lot on my mind. Of course I’ll watch the dance.” She smiles reassuringly.

Louis looks at her, considering, for a moment and then drops it, the concerned downward attitude of her mouth smoothing out into an easy smile, “And you’ll look through that lovely obscure indie music library of yours to find the perfect song to go with it?”

Harry snorts, rolling her eyes, “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure I can find something.”

Louis swings their arms back and forth where they’re connected, and squeezes her hand twice. Harry squeezes back, and they walk the rest of the way to the dining hall in silence.

When they arrive the girls are already seated, having commandeered a big corner booth that all five of them can fit in comfortably. Louis pulls out a chair for Harry, waving with courtly grace for her to take a seat. Harry shakes her head, giggling, “I haven’t even gotten any food yet, Lou.”

Louis makes a face, then instead offers Harry her elbow, “To the pizza line then, my love?”

“You two are disgusting,” Niall says, already tucking into a massive plate of pasta, “Aren’t they disgusting, Zee, Li?”

“Agreed.” Zayn murmurs, carefully pouring a packet of salad dressing across her dinner.

At that particular moment Liam’s mouth is full of sandwich so the noise she makes cannot be definitively defined as affirmative or negative. Harry takes it as the former, because she’s an optimist.

Harry takes the elbow, channeling 1800’s Harry and making the snottiest face she can muster, “You’re just _jealous_ of our spanning-across-time-immortal-soulmatery, right, Lou?”

Louis copies her and acts all aloof and posh, because _women supporting women_ , and replies, “Absolutely they are, my love. Just _jealous_ ,” she pauses gesturing in the direction of the pizza, “Shall we, my dear?”

“Yes.” Harry replies, nose in the air, ignoring the girls’ snickers, “Off we trot!” and to the raucous laughter of the girls behind them, they skip arm-in-arm to the pizza line.

Breathless, they arrive laughing themselves, giggling and pinching each other as they serve themselves quite a few slices.  
“What is it with you and veg on pizza?” Louis asks, disgust in her voice.

Harry shakes her head, used to having this banter every time they have a meal, “Don’t you start in on my love of vegetables; some of us just like the greener things in life.”

Louis snorts, “The only acceptable pizza topping is meat. Mushrooms and onions are acceptable, but fucking broccoli? That shite looks vile, love.”

Harrys rolls her eyes and says in far too flippant a voice, “Sorry that some of us plan on living past our 30’s, darling.”

Harry sees Louis flinch, and regret makes her stomach drop to her knees, “Shit. Shit, love, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

Louis holds up a hand, waving away her apologies, “I know. I’m just. A little sensitive is all, sorry, darling.”

Harry shakes her head, using the hand not holding her plate to reach out and take Louis’ hand, “No, no you’re not. I just, don’t know how to process this.” Frustration creeps into her tone, “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. We haven’t heard shit, about, like anything, in weeks and I don’t know if I should relax, or I should keep my guard up because that’s what she’s waiting for and I just.” She closes her eyes.

“I know, Harry, I know.” Louis murmurs.

She squeezes Louis’ hand twice. Louis squeezes back. They walk back to the table silently to sit and eat and joke and laugh with the girls and neither of them mention it for the rest of the night, and everything is fine.

Almost.

++++++++

Louis leans her back against the Science and Technology building, taking one last long drag from her cig and letting the smoke curl slowly out of her nose. She checks her watch again, a quick glance, and then rolls her eyes at herself; _she’s fine. She’s only two minutes late. Everything is fine. She probably just stopped to talk to a professor._

This has become Louis mantra in the past two months since hers and Perrie’s brawl in the dance studio. They haven’t heard hide nor hare of her since that day, and Harry has since stopped all planning and protection on her behalf, insisting that they must have finally scared Perrie off this time. Louis isn’t so sure, and taking into account the way that Liam, Niall, and Zayn keep watching Harry when she’s not looking, that mixture of concern and fear, she doesn’t think she’s alone in that sentiment.

Louis, Zee, and Liam are still shadowing Harry, quietly, as much as their combined schedules allow. Louis has been skipping several classes quite consistently for a few weeks now, pretty soon she’ll have to start covering her ass and fabricate memories for a few of her professors, but at the moment her priority is, as always, Harry.

Her heart glows just to think of her. She’s never forgotten any of their love stories, they never fade no matter how much time has passed, but she forgets what it’s like to be _in_ it rather than wading through the memory, the all-encompassing, eclipsing, borderline-obsessive passion that exists between Harry and her. Even the smallest things, the looks they share, the sound of her laugh, the nights she curls up in Louis’ bed and tucks the curve of her shoulder perfectly beneath Louis’ chin. She’ll do anything to keep her. Absolutely anything, even break the promise she made to Damen so very long ago.

She shakes out her shoulders, stiff from the cold, and then drops the end of her cig on the ground, grinding it under the heel of her boot to make sure it goes out. She stares at the ground a little longer, willing herself to stay calm and not let her fantasies run away from her, Harry hurt, Harry scared, Harry alone with _her_ , crying out in pain—

“Lou!!”

Louis is so absorbed in her morbid thoughts that she doesn’t even see Harry until she’s in her arms. Louis pulls her close on instinct and breathes in her perfume, all sweet summer fruits, a huff of relief falling from her lips. “Hi, darling.” She says brightly, pulling back from their embrace to give Harry a quick peck, “Ready?”

Harry nods, eyes bright and cheeks pink with cold. They begin the trek back to Louis’ dorm as Harry fills Louis’ in on her day in the hours they spent apart, talking about her final projects and papers, the due dates of which feel far away but also far too close. Louis can hardly believe another semester is almost gone.

They arrive at Louis’ dorm, blessedly empty, and both toss bags and coats into a pile on the floor. Louis leans down to unlace her boots, kicking them off her feet clumsily and then falling gracelessly onto her bed. Harry, giggling, slips off her trainers, still tied in their perfect bows, and then lazily ambles over to Louis, crawling on top of her and folding her body as small as she possibly can to rest her head on Louis’ collarbone.

Louis can sense the warmth of Harry’s breath on her skin through her shirt, and slowly begins tracing patterns on Harry’s back, feeling the tension between her shoulders melt every second her fingers are on Harry’s skin.

“Tell me a story.” Harry murmurs.

Louis smiles. Harry loves this game. “What kind of story?”

“A love story.”

“Hmm,” Louis considers, brushing a stray curl behind Harry’s ear and pressing a kiss in its place, “Let me think, I might I know a few of those.”

“Lou.”

“Alright, alright,” Louis laughs, softly. “The year was 1867, and I had just moved into a large property in rural New York.” She pauses, “Zayn wasn’t with me. She wanted to spend a few months in the Caribbean Islands, long before they were called that, mind. But I was tired of the storms, and the heat, and fucking boats. Worst bloody way to travel; weeks and weeks spent crammed onto giant wooden petri dish; fucking vile it was. They were responsible for more deaths than any bloody war I can remember.” She takes a breath, “But, yeah, not the point. I moved to New York. At that point in time it was a mix of wilderness and small towns outside the large cities, and the community I chose was small, but had space between pieces of land. I spread the word that I was a war widow recently moved to the area, and within a few weeks of settling in, I received a very short, very polite letter from another young widow who wished to make my acquaintance. The note was signed H.E.S., and I replied so quickly that the houseman who had rode in with the note was able to leave with my reply, inviting to the young woman come visit me at her leisure,” she smiled at the memory, “Your carriage pulled up to my front door within a fortnight.”

Louis can hear the grin in Harry’s voice, “Eager, was I?”

Louis shrugs, still drawing swirls and shapes between Harry’s shoulder blades, “Lonely, more like. That was why I pretended to be a war widow, it was common in that time for young widows who didn’t wish to depend on men to propose each other and live together.”

Harry’s head bolts up, “We were _married_?”

Louis makes a considering noise, “In a fashion. We took vows, privately, and left each other our property, but our names remained the same.” She purses her lips, “And people did not recognize us as a couple, they treated us more like…roommates.”

Harry snorts, “Gals being pals, huh?”

Louis laughs, short and loud, “Truly. I was just grateful it wasn’t…er…illegal anymore. There was a period of time if any two people, bar husband and wife, touched hands in public they could be hanged for immortality.”

“Christ.” Harry breathes in awe, settling back down on Louis’ collarbone, “Were we together then?”

“For a little while.” Louis replies, trying to keep her voice level over a swell of emotion, “We used to pray together, a lot.” She tips Harry’s face up so that their eyes can meet, running a thumb very softly across her puffy, pink, bottom lip, “I used to watch the way your mouth moved when you spoke the words…” she lowers her voice to a whisper, “I wanted to kiss you so very badly.”

Harry’s eyelashes flutter as her mouth parts just the tiniest under Louis’ thumb, her voice comes out huskier than before when she replies, “Why don’t you do it now?”

“Hmm.” Louis breathes, as if she needs to consider it, eyes soft and fond and warm, “Oh, alright.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon talking and kissing and kissing and talking, but to Harry’s further confusion and mild disappointment, Louis keeps it from going any farther than that. Louis is asleep now, their bodies shifted around so that Louis’ face is buried in the crook of Harry’s shoulder, and Harry’s hands are gently combing through her hair.

Louis doesn’t really _need_ to sleep, technically, or so she had explained to Harry; her stupid ‘ _immortalism_ ’ or whatever takes care of most bodily needs like that. She also explained to Harry, with a matter-of-fact tone of voice that almost broke Harry’s heart, that sleeping is difficult for Louis most of the time because she dreams so vividly, most often of times that are painful. Harry thinks of some of the dreams she’s been having for the past few months and holds back a full body shudder. She can empathize.

She takes a deep breath in through her nose, evening and centering her breath like Louis taught her, and willing her body to relax. She turns her face, burying her face in Louis’ hair, and closes her eyes.

+++++++

_June 8, 1969_

_Harry walks down the hall, the rubber of her sneakers squeaking against the ugly, shit-brown tile of Sullivan West High. She reaches up a hand to adjust the strap of her leather shoulder bag, worn and soft from so many years of use and waves at a few passers-by, people she knows from bio lab, calling out “Hey, Harrison!” in greeting. She smiles at them politely, but doesn’t stop to chit-chat._

_She turns around a corner, passing her homeroom, and walks a little further down the row of lockers until she sees her._

_Harry hastens her pace, sneakers slapping even louder on the floor and shoulder bag swinging wildly, and barely stops herself from running right into—“Hey, Lou.”_

_Louise looks up at her, already smiling, her wavy hair flopping messily in front of her dreamy blue eyes. Harry watches as she pulls a book out of her locker and tucks it into her bag, “Hey yourself. I was wondering whether you’d turn up or not.” She slams her locker, zips her bag up, and then shoulders it all in one fluid motion; that’s how it always is with Louise. Everything she does has a practiced ease that make spacey, klutzy, clumsy people like Harry look even sillier by comparison._

_Harry looks at the floor for a second, blushing, “My mom made me dress like a total bogue.” She gestures to the bathroom back down at the other end of the hall, “Had to duck in and change before anyone saw me.”_

_Louise nods like she understands, but Harry knows that she really doesn’t. Louise lives with her super groovy cousin who’s like, almost never even at the crib they share, and would never say what she could and could not wear to school because **“You are a reflection on me and your father Harrison Elizabeth and I will not have you dressing like a hippie slut! Not while you live under my roof!”** Harry rolls her eyes just thinking about it; her mom is such a square._

_“So.” Harry glances around to make sure no one is listening to them, “You got the goods?”_

_Louise snorts, "The goods? What is this, an after school special?"_

_Harry pouts, "Heyyyy."_

_“Just kidding, babes. You know do.” She pats the side pocket of her bag._

_“Bitchin’” Harry breathes, sucking her bottom lip in between her teeth in excitement._

_“When do you wanna meet, fourth or fifth?” Louise asks, taking a step away from her locker and toward their homeroom. Above them, the bell sounds, prompting a flurry of activity all around them._

_They begin walking towards the door, and Harry considers, “Fifth? I have free period after that so…we could just leave after that.”_

_Louise gasps, pretending to look scandalized, “Harrison Elizabeth, are you suggesting that we **dip out of school early**?”_

_Harry rolls her eyes and shoves Louise’s shoulder, “Oh fuck off.” She blushes, “It’s the last week of high school. I can do whatever I want.”_

_Louise shoves her back, and Harry almost trips as she walks through the door of their homeroom. Behind her, she can hear Louise snickering, but the rest of their classmates don’t look up, they’re all too absorbed in signing yearbooks and messing around and each other._

_Harry plops down in her assigned seat, slouching down so her long legs so that they’re under Louise’s chair in front of her. Louise artfully slides into her seat just as the second bell rings, and the morning announcements begin. Louise turns back lightning fast to make a funny face at Harry, then turns to face the front and listen like the rest of the class._

_Harry spends the next four periods staring at the clock, knee bouncing with impatience as people chatter around her. She regrets not offering to meet at the beginning of fourth period, or hell, even skipping the whole fucking day and just spending it with Louise._

_When the warning bell rings for the beginning of fourth period, Harry is not inside to hear it. She settles back on the woven blanket she spread out beneath them on the dry, dirty ground and takes a deep inhale from the spliff, holding the smoke in her lungs for a moment before turning to blow the smoke into Louise’s ear._

_Louise laughs, letting go of Harry’s hand for a second to scratch at the victim ear, “You’re such a dick.”_

_Harry sucks back another inhale, the burn in her throat made worth it for the hazy warmth she can already feel settling in her bones. She passes the joint to Louise, who takes an even longer pull than Harry, and blows the smoke up in rings toward the metal rafters of the bleachers above them. Harry closes her eyes, relaxed, “You love it though.”_

_She can hear, rather than see, the fond smile in Louise’s voice, “You know I do, my heart. You know I do.”_

_Harry opens her eyes and sits up to look at Louise, leaning back on her elbow just to watch her. Because thing is, Louise is like, drop-dead gorgeous. Her eyes are a perfect cornflower blue, her skin is smooth and evenly tan, and when she smiles or laughs with (or sometimes at) Harry her whole face lights up and she gets these little crinkles by the sides of her eyes. She’s so dreamy and groovy and funny and gorgeous and cool that Harry can hardly believe Louise even wants to talk to her, let alone—_

_The spliff is ash, so Louise snubs it on the ground beside them, and before she can settle back down Harry is leaning over her, hands in her hair to pull their mouths together. Louise moans, low in the back of her throat, and Harry can feel her hands drifting over the curves of Harry’s body. Her hands gliding down Harry’s ribcage to the waistband of her corduroys, slipping her thumbs through the empty belt loops and tugging, pulling Harry up and over Louise to straddle her hips._

_Harry likes being on top when they fuck, just because of the way that Louise looks up at her with stars in her eyes like she’s the greatest thing ever made, like Harry was put on this earth to be loved by Louise and Louise was put on this earth to be loved by Harry and everyone else was wrong._

_Harry settles down on top of Louise, letting their bodies touch at every single point, their kissing getting sloppier and sloppier. Louise pulls back with a gasp and looks up at Harry with hooded eyes and Harry isn’t sure if her pupils got that big from the drugs or from her touch._

_Louise leans in to kiss her again, biting at her lips and breathing words into Harry’s mouth, “Oh, my heart, God I could fuckin—”she gasps, when she feels Harry’s hand slip down the waist of her Levi’s, “I could just, Jesus, baby,—I could die from wanting you.”_

_Harry lets her fingers ghosts over Louise’s cotton panties, feeling the warmth and the wet already seeping from her slit, and uses her other hand to cup Louise’s face, her cheek as pink and hot as her cunt will be when Harry gets her mouth on her._

_“Oh sweet love,” Harry murmurs, taste of vanilla on her lips, “I—”_

“Harry?”

Harry’s waking inhale is sharp, and her eyes feel bleary as they look around the darkened room for a moment, then at Louis, whose eyes are clouded with worry. “Harry, you were making noises in your sleep, are you alright?”

Harry closes her eyes, thoughts finally coming together to process what Louis is saying. _Oh._ She thinks, _it was just another dream_. Irrationally, she can feel tears springing up in the corners of her eyes, and her face crumples before she buries herself into Louis’ shoulder, a sob breaking from her throat.

“Whoa,” Louis says, startled even as her hands start to soothe, running down Harry’s spine and combing through her hair, “Harry, darling, what is it? Did you have a nightmare?” Harry shakes her head, violently, and gasps wetly into Louis’ shoulder. “Okay. Okay, love, breathe.” Louis murmurs in her ear, “I’m right here, my darling. Calm. Be still, my love.” So Harry takes steadying breaths, and tries to pull in her senseless tears, humiliated and confused.

When her breaths are calm and slow, the only remnant of her tears the sniffle at the back of her throat and puffy eyes, she pulls away from Louis’ shoulder, reaching up to wipe away the remaining wetness on her cheeks with the backs of her hands. Louis moves forward, eyes soft and understanding, and reaches up her hand to cup Harry’s cheek.

 _Just like hippie-Harry cupped Louise’s cheek before fucking her,_ Harry’s brain supplies, and she feels another stupid tear building up behind her stupid eye, and sighs, frustrated.

Louis thumbs over Harry’s cheekbone, “Tell me. What has you so frightened, darling? I told you, my love, I won’t let her harm a hair on your perfect head. Did she give you a nightmare? Talk to me, Harry.” Louis practically begs, her voice soft and filled with something like hurt.

Harry feels her lip wobble, “It’s stupid.”

Louis shakes her head, “Nothing that upsets you, my dear one, is ever stupid or unimportant to me.”

Harry shakes her head back, “You’re going to laugh at me.”

Louis sits up and then uses both hands to cup Harry’s face, bringing their eyes a breath’s width apart, “I would never mock something that upset you. Ever.”

Eyes locked, green on blue, Harry can feel the walls in her mind crumbling, a wave of insecurities and fears and _want_ tumbling up to her lips, “I had a dream about us. Like I’ve been having for months.” She pulls out of Louis’ hands, and looks down at her own, tangled in her lap, “You wanted her.” she says softly, “You wanted her and you—you don’t want me. Not like that. And I keep thinking,” she bites her lip and blinks back more tears, “waiting, for you to figure it out. That I’m not her,” she sniffles hard, and looks up at Louis, eyes misty again, “I’m not confident or interesting or _normal_ ,” her voice breaks, “My mum and my sister died and it made me a freak, and after that I spent most of my time not even wanting to _see_ other people let alone…” she trails off, and looks away from Louis, flushing.

“Let alone…” Louis prompts, confusion in her voice, “Let alone what, darling?”

Harry looks up, tongue-tied and stricken, and opens her mouth to speak, but doesn’t know what to say. She just closes her mouth, blush even stronger, and looks at her hands again.

“Oh,” Louis says, all the breath coming out of her lungs at once, “Oh, my heart.” She reaches forward to brush curls out of Harry’s crimson face gently. Harry shies away, her body curling back into the wall as she mumbles something. “What, my heart, what now?”

“Don’t call me that,” she repeats, voice clouded with tears, “You called _her_ that.”

Louis sighs, “Oh _Harry_ ,” Harry looks up, and Louis smiles at her, oh-so-tender and syrupy sweet, “Oh, my Harry. You do break my heart with loving you.”

Harry huffs, crossing her arms, “Well not as much as it broke loving _her_.” she tucks her hair behind her ears, annoyed, “I watched you. I watched you with _all_ of them.”

“You watched me?” Louis asks, quirking one eyebrow, “Or you watched them?”

Harry’s eyebrows scrunch together, “Yeah. I watched you _with_ them. I know it’s supposed to be me from another time or whatever but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I’m watching my girlfriend have sex with someone else.”

Louis huffs a laugh, “I was having sex with someone else because I _was_ someone else. Harry, sweetheart, I’m a completely different person than—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Harry cuts her off, “Totally different person, things have changed, blah, blah, blah, I’ve heard this before. But the person you were then wanted _her_ and the person you are very obviously doesn’t want _me_. That’s my point.”

“Who said I don’t want you?”

Harry stops pouting, and turns to look at Louis, who is staring back at her with a new intensity in her eyes. Harry shrugs, mumbling, “Well, we haven’t…and you know…I don’t know…I just figured you wanted to like…just kiss and stuff. And maybe didn’t. Want me, that way an—”

Louis waits, listening to Harry stutter and stumble for a moment, then cuts her off with her lips, deepening the kiss immediately, opening Harry’s mouth with her tongue and stealing her air like she hasn’t since that very first time in Harry’s dorm all those weeks ago, before the truth and fate and immortality and past Harry’s and all of the rest of it; back when it was just that Harry wanted Louis and Louis wanted Harry.

“Baby, Harry, my only love,” Louis says when she breaks the kiss, both of them gasping, “This body was _made_ to want _you_ , always,” she covers Harry’s mouth with another kiss, hands pulling and guiding Harry to lay back on the bed, climbing on top of her and boxing her in, “always, always, always, always,” she repeats between kisses, “Now,” Louis says, licking her lips as she looks into Harry’s eyes, “What do _you_ want?”

Harry reaches up and sucks Louis’ lip in between her teeth, pulling her back down so that she can barely see Louis’ eyes because they’re so close, “I want you.”

Louis sighs, hands drifting down to brush over Harry’s body; sides, hips, thighs, with reverent fingers, “Done. Anything else?”

Harry grabs Louis’ hand by the wrist, boldly, and brings it up, pressing her open palm to the heat between Harry’s legs, “Guess.” She murmurs, their mouths still touching.

“Done.”

++++++

Later, when the sun is rising and casts a pink glow over the room, Louis breathes in and feels, whole.

Harry is asleep, her bare skin painted with the colors of the sunrise as she snores softly into Louis’ collarbone. Louis blows softly on the back of her neck, making Harry snort, then wiggle away from the cool air. Louis chuckles, softly, then presses a kiss to whatever part of Harry’s head is closest to her mouth.  
Louis closes her eyes again, contemplating going back to sleep, when suddenly the calm is broken by the sound of Harry’s phone. Louis starts out to grab it, silence it, but Harry startles awake first, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes, mumbling “I’m up, I’m up.” as she reaches for the phone.

She holds it in front of her, obviously expecting it to be an alarm, but instead it must be a phone call, because she unlocks it then presses it to her ear, voice low and gritty as she answers, “Li, what the fuck, it’s literally not even 7 o’clock, Louis and I—” she stops, cut off by the frantic voice on the other side of the phone, “Li, what do you mean you—No, I haven’t seen Niall, I’ve been with Louis all night. I don’t remember the last time—wait what? You—” horror washes over her features, “Oh fuck, fuck I—Li are you sure? Okay. Okay we’re getting dressed. Me and Louis are getting dressed and coming now, we’ll be there in seconds. Yeah.” She hangs up the call, jumping out of bed and pulling on her clothes, looking up at Louis frantically, “Get up, c’mon, we have to go,”

“Harry,” Louis asks, alarmed, “What’s happening? What did Liam say?”  
Harry doesn’t stop moving, shoving on shoes and grabbing her keys, “Hurry, get dressed!”

Louis does as she’s told, but asks again as she’s pulling on jeans, “Harry, what the fuck did Liam say to you?”

Harry looks up her, eyes filled with fear and uncertainty, “Niall’s missing. And Zayn is pretty sure that it’s Perrie who took her.”

++++++

**Author's Note:**

> Follow my one direction/lesbian worship/catastrophe of a [tumblr](http://louly23.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Read more of my terrible 1D fic; [darling, i'll take care of you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12287082) and [pull me into your orbit, be my sun.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21208598)


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